Goldman Sachs Asset Management has launched an emerging markets fund investing in fixed income securities issued by growth and emerging market governments and corporates.

The Growth and Emerging Markets Blend Portfolio is a long-only portfolio that aims to alleviate the need for investors to decide how much to allocate to different strategies by assigning the responsibility for asset allocation to the manager, the firm said in a statement.

The fund is a blend of securities denominated in US dollars and the local currencies of growth and emerging countries.

“In our view, some of the most compelling investment opportunities in fixed income today are in emerging markets as debt sustainability is currently less of a concern, yields are more elevated and economies are looking healthier compared to developed markets. In addition, as investor familiarity with emerging market debt increases, we are already seeing investors add local sovereign and corporate debt to their external sovereign mandates," said Sam Finkelstein global head of macro strategies and chief investment officer at Goldman Sachs.

In other recent news, in April Goldman Sachs Bank USA confirmed it had won approval to operate a private bank in the UK. For more on this story, click here.

Goldman Sachs reported total net revenues of $10.09 billion for the first quarter, up 9 per cent from $9.23 billion in the final quarter of 2012. The firm said net earnings fell from $2.89 billion at 31 December 2012 to $2.26 billion in the first quarter of 2013, a decrease of 22 per cent.