XML 66 R50.htm IDEA: XBRL DOCUMENT v3.21.1
Total
Ivy VIP Corporate Bond
Ivy VIP Corporate Bond
Objective
To seek to
provide
current income consistent with preservation of capital.
Fees and Expenses
This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy and hold shares of the Portfolio. The table below does not reflect any fees and expenses imposed under the variable life insurance policies and variable annuity contracts (collectively, Policies) through which this Portfolio is offered. See the Policy prospectus for a description of those fees and expenses.
Shareholder Fees (fees paid directly from your investment)
Shareholder Fees
Ivy VIP Corporate Bond
Class II
USD ($)
Shareholder Fees (fees paid directly from your investment)
Annual Portfolio Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a % of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses
Ivy VIP Corporate Bond
Class II
Management Fees 0.48%
Distribution and Service (12b-1) Fees 0.25%
Other Expenses 0.04%
Total Annual Portfolio Operating Expenses 0.77%
Example
This example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the shares of the Portfolio with the cost of investing in other portfolios. This example does not reflect any fees and expenses imposed under the Policies.
The example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the shares of the Portfolio for the time periods indicated. The example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Portfolio’s operating expenses remain the same. The costs are the same for each time period if you continue to hold your shares or if you redeem all your shares at the end of those periods. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions, your costs would be:
Expense Example
1 Year
3 Years
5 Years
10 Years
Ivy VIP Corporate Bond | Class II | USD ($) 79 246 428 954
Expense Example, No Redemption
1 Year
3 Years
5 Years
10 Years
Ivy VIP Corporate Bond | Class II | USD ($) 79 246 428 954
Portfolio Turnover
The Portfolio bears transaction costs, such as spreads between bid and asked prices, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs. These costs, which are not reflected in annual portfolio operating expenses or in the example, affect the Portfolio’s performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the Portfolio's portfolio turnover rate was 95% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
Ivy VIP Corporate Bond seeks to achieve its objective by investing, under normal circumstances, at least 80% of its net assets in corporate bonds (also referred to as corporate “debt securities” or “fixed-income securities”). For this purpose, “corporate bonds” includes any debt security issued by a domestic or foreign company with an initial maturity greater than one year. The Portfolio invests primarily in investment-grade debt securities (including bonds rated BBB- or higher by S&P Global Ratings, a division of S&P Global, Inc. (S&P), or comparably rated by another nationally recognized statistical rating organization (NRSRO) or, if unrated, determined by Ivy Investment Management Company (IICO), the Portfolio’s investment manager, to be of comparable quality). The Portfolio has no limitations regarding the duration or dollar-weighted average of its holdings, may invest in debt securities with varying maturities and can invest in debt securities issued by both domestic and foreign companies, in a variety of sectors and industries. The Portfolio may invest significantly in debt securities payable from the same sector.
In selecting debt securities for the Portfolio, IICO looks at a number of factors, including both a top-down (assessing the market environment) and a bottom-up (researching individual issuers) analysis. The top-down analysis looks at broad economic and financial trends in an effort to anticipate their impact on the fixed-income market and seeks to identify certain criteria that contribute to the overall target portfolio characteristics such as duration, spread, ratings and liquidity. The bottom-up analysis seeks to identify sectors that IICO believes have favorable risk/reward characteristics
and targets those sectors for overweight positioning. From the sector level, IICO identifies companies that have positive attributes and considers the issuer’s past, present and estimated future: financial strength, cash flow, management, borrowing requirements, balance sheet policy and relative safety. Additional factors considered include leverage, interest coverage, revenue and margin stability, competition and industry trends, as well as relative value and liquidity.
Generally, in determining whether to sell a security, IICO uses the same type of analysis that it uses in buying securities. For example, IICO may sell a holding if, in IICO’s opinion, the issuer’s financial strength weakens and/or the yield and relative safety of the security decline. IICO also may sell a security to reduce the Portfolio’s holding in that security, to take advantage of what it believes are more attractive investment opportunities or to raise cash.
Principal Investment Risks
As with any mutual fund, the value of the Portfolio’s shares will change, and you could lose money on your investment. The Portfolio is not intended as a complete investment program.
A variety of factors can affect the investment performance of the Portfolio and prevent it from achieving its objective. These include:
Company Risk.
A company may be more volatile or perform worse than the overall market due to specific factors, such as adverse changes to its business or investor perceptions about the company.
Credit Risk.
An issuer of a fixed-income obligation may not make payments on the obligation when due or may default on its obligation. There also is the risk that an issuer could suffer adverse changes in its financial condition that could lower the credit quality of a security. This could lead to greater volatility in the price of the security, could affect the security’s liquidity, and could make it more difficult to sell. A downgrade or default affecting any of the Portfolio’s securities could affect the Portfolio’s performance. In general, the longer the maturity and the lower the credit quality of a bond, the more sensitive it is to credit risk.
Extension Risk.
A rise in interest rates could cause borrowers to pay back the principal on certain debt securities, such as mortgage-backed or asset-backed securities, more slowly than expected, thus lengthening the average life of such securities. This could cause the value of such securities to be more volatile or to decline more than other fixed-income securities, and may magnify the effect of the rate increase on the price of such securities.
Financials Sector Risk.
Investment risks associated with investing in securities in the financials sector, in addition to other risks, include extensive governmental regulation and/or nationalization that affects the scope of their activities, the prices they can charge and the amount of capital they must maintain; adverse effects from increases in interest rates; effects on profitability by loan losses, which usually increase in economic downturns; the severe competition to which banks, insurance, and financial services companies may be subject; and increased interindustry consolidation and competition in the financials sector. The impact of more stringent capital requirements, recent or future regulation on any individual financial company or recent or future regulation on the financials economic sector as a whole cannot be predicted.
Fixed-Income Market Risk.
The prices of the Portfolio’s fixed-income securities respond to economic developments, particularly interest rate changes, as well as to perceptions about the creditworthiness of individual issuers. Generally, the Portfolio’s fixed-income securities will decrease in value if interest rates rise and vice versa. In a low interest rate environment, risks associated with rising rates are heightened. Rising interest rates tend to decrease liquidity, increase trading costs and increase volatility, all of which may make portfolio management more difficult and costly to the Portfolio and its shareholders. In the case of foreign securities, price fluctuations will reflect international economic and political events, as well as changes in currency valuations relative to the U.S. dollar. Other factors may materially and adversely affect the market price and yield of such fixed-income securities, including investor demand, changes in the financial condition of the applicable issuer, government fiscal policy and domestic or worldwide economic conditions. In addition, certain events, such as natural disasters, terrorist attacks, war, regional or global instability and other geopolitical events, have led, and may in the future lead, to increased short-term market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Foreign Securities Risk.
Investing in foreign securities involves a number of economic, financial, legal and political considerations that are not associated with the U.S. markets and that could affect the Portfolio’s performance unfavorably, depending upon the prevailing conditions at any given time. Among these potential risks are: greater price volatility; comparatively weak supervision and regulation of securities exchanges, brokers and issuers; higher brokerage costs; social, political or economic instability; fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates and related conversion costs or currency redenomination; nationalization or expropriation of assets; adverse foreign tax consequences; different and/or less stringent financial reporting standards; and settlement, custodial or other operational delays. The risks may be exacerbated in connection with investments in emerging markets.
  World markets, or those in a particular region, all may react in similar fashion to important economic or political developments. In addition, key information about the issuer, the markets or the local government or economy may be unavailable, incomplete or inaccurate. Securities of issuers traded on exchanges may be suspended, either by the issuers themselves, by an exchange or by governmental authorities. The likelihood of such suspensions may be higher
  for securities of issuers in emerging markets than in more developed markets. In the event that the Portfolio holds material positions in such suspended securities, the Portfolio’s ability to liquidate its positions or provide liquidity to investors may be compromised and the Portfolio could incur significant losses.
Income Risk.
The risk that the Portfolio may experience a decline in its income due to falling interest rates, earnings declines, or income decline within a security. The amount and rate of distributions that the Portfolio’s shareholders receive are affected by the income that the Portfolio receives from its portfolio holdings. If the income is reduced, distributions by the Portfolio to shareholders may be less.
Interest Rate Risk.
A rise in interest rates may cause a decline in the value of the Portfolio’s securities, especially securities with longer maturities. Typically, the longer the maturity or duration of a debt security, the greater the effect a change in interest rates could have on the security’s price. Thus, the sensitivity of the Portfolio’s debt securities to interest rate risk will increase with any increase in the duration of those securities. A decline in interest rates may cause the Portfolio to experience a decline in its income. Interest rates in the U.S. recently have been at, and remain near, historic lows, which may increase the Portfolio’s exposure to risks associated with rising rates. The Portfolio may be subject to heightened interest rate risk as a result of a rise or anticipated rise in interest rates. In addition, a general rise in rates may result in decreased liquidity and increased volatility in the fixed-income markets generally.
Liquidity Risk.
Liquidity generally is related to the market trading volume for a particular security. Securities that have relatively less liquidity may trade at a discount from comparable, more liquid investments, and may be subject to wider fluctuations in market value. Such securities may be more difficult to dispose of at their recorded values and are subject to increased spreads and volatility. Also, the Portfolio may not be able to dispose of illiquid, or relatively less liquid, securities when that would be beneficial at a favorable time or price. Certain investments that generally were liquid when the Portfolio purchased them may become relatively less liquid, or even deemed illiquid, sometimes abruptly.
Management Risk.
Portfolio performance is primarily dependent on IICO's skill in evaluating and managing the Portfolio’s holdings. There can be no guarantee that its decisions will produce the desired results, and the Portfolio may not perform as well as other similar mutual funds.
Reinvestment Risk.
A decline in interest rates may cause issuers to prepay higher-yielding securities held by the Portfolio, resulting in the Portfolio reinvesting in securities with lower yields, which may cause a decline in its income.
Sector Risk.
At times, the Portfolio may have a significant portion of its assets invested in securities of companies conducting business in a broadly related group of industries within an economic sector. Individual sectors may be more volatile, and may perform differently, than the broader market. Companies in the same economic sector may be similarly affected by economic or market events, making the Portfolio more vulnerable to unfavorable developments in that economic sector than funds that invest more broadly.
U.S. Government Securities Risk.
Certain U.S. government securities, such as U.S. Treasury (Treasury) securities and securities issued by the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae), are backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. Other U.S. government securities, such as securities issued by the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) and the Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLB), are not backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government and, instead, may be supported only by the credit of the issuer or by the right of the issuer to borrow from the Treasury.
Performance
The chart and table below provide some indication of the risks of investing in the Portfolio. The chart shows how performance has varied from year to year for Class II shares of the Portfolio. The table shows the average annual total returns for Class II shares of the Portfolio and also compares the Portfolio’s returns with those of a broad-based securities market index and a Morningstar peer group (comprised of a universe of mutual funds with investment objectives similar to that of the Portfolio). The performance results do not reflect any Policy-related fees and expenses, which would reduce the performance results.
Performance results include the effect of expense reduction arrangements for some or all of the periods shown. If those arrangements had not been in place, the performance results for those periods would have been lower.
Prior to April 30, 2012, the Portfolio’s investment objective was to seek a reasonable return with emphasis on preservation of capital. Effective as of April 30, 2012, the Portfolio changed its investment objective to seeking to provide current income consistent with preservation of capital. Effective April 30, 2018, the Portfolio changed its name and strategy to reflect a focus on corporate bonds, rather than in bonds generally. Performance prior to April 30, 2018 reflects the Portfolio’s former strategy and may have differed if the Portfolio’s current strategy had been in place.
The Portfolio’s past performance does not necessarily indicate how it will perform in the future. Current performance may be lower or higher. Please call (888) 923-3355 for the Portfolio’s updated performance.
Chart of Year-by-Year Returns as of December 31 each year
Bar Chart
In the period shown in the chart, the highest quarterly return was 9.53% (the second quarter of 2020) and the lowest quarterly return​​​​​​​ was -3.05% (the fourth quarter of 2016).
Average Annual Total Returns as of December 31, 2020
Average Annual Total Returns - Ivy VIP Corporate Bond
1 Year
5 Years
10 Years
Class II 10.97% 5.73% 4.38%
Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Credit Index (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes) 9.35% 6.44% 5.40%
Morningstar Corporate Bond Category Average (net of fees and expenses) 9.24% 6.23% 5.31%