The fund seeks capital appreciation in the long term by investing in companies across any size outside the United States.
The sub-adviser’s 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.
Next, the research team focuses on securities, including non-dollar securities, of foreign issuers.
The team also focuses on underappreciated companies, improving return on capital, and securities that are lagging in market price for temporary reasons.
The research process is driven by fundamental analysis of one stock at a time. In selecting securities for the portfolio, the research team evaluates a company’s business environment, management quality, balance sheet, income statement, anticipated earnings, revenues and dividends.
In addition, the research team integrates environmental, social and governance factors as part of its process.
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 fund diversifies its investments among a number of different countries throughout the world, with no limit on the amount of assets that may be invested in each country.
Also, the fund may invest in companies domiciled in emerging markets as a percentage of its net assets up to the greater of 25% or the weight of emerging markets in the Index plus 10%.
Based on market or economic conditions, the fund may focus in one or more sectors of the market.
Additionally, the fund has the flexibility to invest across all market capitalizations, but invests primarily in mid and large capitalization companies.