Fund Objective

The objective of the Fund is to seek long-term capital appreciation through investment primarily in equity securities issued world-wide.

View on Past Performance

During September, the fund underperformed its benchmark. The portfolio made strong gains from its defensive positioning during September. Both stock selection and an underweight position in the materials and industrials sectors benefited the portfolio as the more cyclical stocks sold off sharply. The overweight position in consumer staples was a strong positive, and stock selection in the telecom services sector was also strong during the month.Within the financials sector, we sold out of Bank of Ireland to fund a new position in Italian Bank Intesa Sanpaolo. We made a small addition to Bank of New York Mellon and elsewhere the positions in IBM and Kerry group were trimmed and a new position in US Telecom Services company AT&T was added to the portfolio.

Future Expectations

Our outlook remains cautious and the defensive positioning of the portfolio has therefore been maintained. We continue to focus our research on finding companies which meet our valuation criteria and offer potential for outperformance over the longer term.

Fund Details