The asset management company has made its Brandywine Global Opportunistic Fixed Income fund available to UK investors.

The $12 billion (£7.7 billion) fund will be co-managed by David Hoffman and Stephen Smith, both managing partners and portfolio directors at Brandywine, a Philadelphia-based subsidiary of Legg Mason.

It is now available to UK investors through the group's Dublin-domiciled fund range.

In a statement, Legg Mason said the fund will invest primarily in investment grade sovereigns, and will have some exposure to corporate bonds and mortgage-backed securities across both developed and emerging markets.

Non-investment grade exposure will be capped at 35 per cent of the portfolio.

Investments will be concentrated in eight to 16 countries that it considers offer the best total returns, an approach that Hoffman and Smith feel minimises portfolio risk, said the group.

The fund will aim to outperform its benchmark, the Citigroup World Government Bond index, by at least 2 per cent annually.

Adam Gent (pictured), head of UK sales at Legg Mason, claimed that Brandywine Global’s global opportunistic fixed income strategy was popular among US retail and institutional investors and that it had a long track record of 'outstanding outperformance'.

'With demand increasingly moving towards strategies with the flexibility to invest globally in pursuit of strong risk-adjusted and inflation-beating returns, we believe this fund will appeal to UK investors who want diversification and performance through a management team which has the proven ability to deliver in all types of market environment,' he added.