The fund seeks capital appreciation by investing in small-and mid-size companies 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.

Next, the research team focuses on foreign securities, including emerging market securities.

The team favors companies exhibiting above average earnings growth potential.

The research process is driven by fundamental analysis of one stock at a time. In selecting securities for the portfolio, the research team prefers companies with good fundamentals and growth prospects.

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.

Also, the fund invests its assets across different industries, sectors, countries, and regions, but may invest a significant percentage of its net assets in issuers in a single industry, sector, country, or region.

The fund has the flexibility to invest across all market capitalizations, but primarily invests in securities of companies with small to medium capitalizations.