The portfolio management team’s investment process targets established large-capitalization companies that possess a leading competitive position in their peer group, attractive growth prospects, above-average earnings quality and predictability as well as a reasonable market valuation. The managers’ selection process immediately eliminates distressed companies and those that are highly overvalued.

Each co-manager is a sector specialist responsible for stock selection in his area of expertise. He performs rigorous fundamental research on the most attractive companies in his sector, developing growth models and evaluating key business drivers for the 30 to 40 companies in his active universe. The manager tests best- and worst-case scenarios to determine an achievable growth rate for each company.

The team ranks investment candidates by potential using a proprietary price-discipline approach. Investments are selected for the portfolio from the stocks that exhibit the highest return potential.

A Word about Risk

Investing is based on the expectation of positive price performance due to continued earnings growth or anticipated changes in the market or within the company itself. However, if a company fails to meet that expectation or anticipated changes do not occur, its stock price may decline. Moreover, as with all equity investing, there is the risk that an unexpected change in the market or within the company itself may have an adverse effect on its stock. Investing in growth-oriented stocks involves potentially higher volatility and risk than investing in income-generating stocks. The biggest risk of equity investing is that returns can fluctuate and investors can lose money. Because the fund normally will hold a focused portfolio of stocks of fewer companies than many other diversified funds. The increase or decrease of the value of a single stock may have a greater impact on the fund's net asset value and total return.