The fund seeks total return 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.
As part of its process, the investment team seeks to identify equity instruments of International Issuers.
According to the investment team, an issuer will be considered an international issuer if it is organized, domiciled, or has a principal place of business in a country that is part of the MSCI World ex-USA Index, or if an instrument provides exposure to the change in value of a company that meets that definition.
The strategy pursues a defensive investment style, meaning it seeks to participate in rising equity markets while mitigating downside risk in declining markets.
Next, the research team focuses on stable and financially sound companies with less downside risk characteristics.
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.
In managing the portfolio, the manager may from time to time utilize certain tax management techniques which consider the potential impact of federal income tax on shareholders’ investment return.
The fund has the flexibility to invest across all market capitalizations but from time to time may invest to a significant extent in small- and mid-cap companies.