The fund seeks capital appreciation in the long term by investing in companies across any size outside the United States.
The investment process starts with a list of companies in the benchmark index and the research team utilizes quantitative techniques and fundamental analysis to identify investment opportunities.
The investment team favors securities of emerging country issuers. Currently, most Central and South American, African, Asian and Eastern European nations, among others, are considered emerging countries.
Next, the research team focuses on high quality growth companies that are trading attractive valuations.
The team believes high quality growth companies have definable strategic advantages/moat and competitive positioning.
In addition, the team seeks to identify the presence of near-term catalysts for future growth for companies that are in a positive earnings revision cycle.
Then the manager constructs a portfolio of stocks from a list of companies favored by the research team and allocates capital based on its conviction level.
The portfolio generally holds less than 50 holdings.
The fund generally invests in at least three emerging countries, and, at times, may invest a substantial portion of its assets in a single emerging country.
Also, the fund may invest a significant portion of its net assets in securities of companies conducting business within a single sector.
Additionally, the fund may invest up to 20% of its net assets in equity securities, including common stocks, American Depositary Receipts and Global Depositary Receipts, of frontier country issuers.
According to the team, the issuer of a security is considered to be located in a country if the company is organized under the laws of, or has a principal office in that country.
Other considerations would be if the company’s securities are primarily listed in that country, or a majority of its assets are in, or a majority of its revenue or profits from businesses, investments or sales are from, that country.