Western Asset Diversified Income Fund Raises $1.0 Billion in Initial Public Offering, Starts Trading on New York Stock Exchange

Franklin Templeton, one of the world’s largest asset managers, has announced that Western Asset Diversified Income Fund (the "Fund") has raised $1,000,000,000 in its initial public offering (excluding any exercise of the underwriters' option to purchase additional common shares). The Fund’s common shares began trading on Friday, June 25, 2021, on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "WDI," and the offering is expected to close on Tuesday, June 29, 2021, subject to customary closing conditions.

The Fund sold 50,000,000 common shares at $20.00 per share, with Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities and Wells Fargo Securities acting as lead underwriters. In addition, the Fund has granted the underwriters an option to purchase an additional 6,833,830 common shares at the public offering price within 45 days of the date of the prospectus, June 24, 2021. If the underwriters exercise in full their option to purchase additional shares of the Fund, which may or may not occur, the Fund will have raised approximately $1,136,676,600 million.

The Fund is a diversified, closed-end fund seeking high current income and, secondarily, capital appreciation. Legg Mason Partners Fund Advisor, LLC ("LMPFA") acts as the Fund's investment manager. The Fund is also sub-advised by Western Asset Management Company, LLC and its affiliates (collectively, “Western Asset”), a global active fixed-income manager with 50 years of experience and $476.3 billion in assets under management (AUM) as of March 31, 2021. Western Asset, which currently manages $181 billion in multi-sector bond strategies as of March 31, 2021, has been one of Franklin Templeton’s independent specialist investment managers since July 2020.

“We believe that income investors are facing serious challenges as yields for traditional bond benchmarks and sovereign debt have hit historically low levels,” said portfolio manager Michael Buchanan, who is Deputy Chief Investment Officer of Western Asset. “This actively managed multi-sector bond strategy is designed to proactively exploit value opportunities. We’re seeking diversified sources of income, which means we’re anticipating investing across the entirety of the global credit markets to enhance portfolio diversification and return potential.”