The locally-based ~25 person team builds the portfolio one company at a time. The team looks for stocks in local markets that may be overlooked by managers operating solely within their home countries and that are trading at a discount, but have the potential to generate strong returns. This allows them to focus on the merits of each investment rather than country or sector allocation, seeking to deliver strong outperformance through stock selection.

The Fund uses a proprietary framework to identify and invest in a selective portfolio of companies that satisfy the Fund's Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria. By incorporating ESG criteria and an active ownership approach, the Fund seeks to manage risk from an ESG perspective and invest in sustainable businesses trading at attractive valuations that may generate excess returns over the benchmark.

Emerging markets benchmarks can be restricting, as they may have a bias towards larger-cap, government-owned stocks. We believe our broader opportunity set, outside the index, with exposure to small/ mid caps, may offer greater potential for appreciation due to market inefficiencies.