The fund seeks capital appreciation in the long term by investing in companies across any size in the United States.
The sub-advisor’s investment process is designed to highlight companies exhibiting strong sales and earnings growth potential. The process also evaluates the sustainability of a company’s competitive advantage and management’s ability to create value for shareholders.
Next, the research team looks for companies that have the ability to advance new products or services and operate a business model that is displacing legacy industry incumbents, and/or that are benefitting from changes in demographic, lifestyle, or environmental trends.
In addition, the team focuses on a company’s capital allocation strategy and valuation multiples on the basis of earnings, book value, operating profit margin trends, free cash flow yield, and EV/EBITDA ratio.
The research process also includes meeting with company management as well as a company’s vendors, distributors, competitors and customers.
The fund has the flexibility to invest up to 25% of its net assets in securities of foreign issuers.