Investment Philosophy

What We Believe

Since our firm’s inception, we have adhered to a philosophy grounded in five tenets:

• Multi-asset: We believe that active asset allocation contributes to better risk-adjusted returns over time.
• Higher quality companies tend to deliver consistent economic returns. We believe that investments in “higher quality” companies — those with durable business models and long track records of superior profitability, high financial stability, and steady growth — offer opportunities to outperform the market and more risky alternatives.
• The stocks of higher quality companies are frequently mispriced. We believe most investors, especially those with optimistic expectations and a focus on near-term results, fail to discount sufficiently for risk. This market bias means that investors tend to overvalue the stock of companies with lower quality characteristics and undervalue the stock of companies with higher quality characteristics. We seek to take advantage of this systemic market inefficiency.
• Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors can impact a company’s long-term prospects. We view ESG analysis as part of our mandate to ensure client assets are invested in securities that we believe are well-positioned to minimize risk and produce sustainable returns.
• Risks can be mitigated through a disciplined approach to valuation and diversification. As investors, we don’t want to overpay for an investment. A strong valuation discipline helps us to differentiate between good companies and good stocks. Effective portfolio diversification is also critical to reducing the overall risk of a portfolio.

What We Expect

Our proprietary investment strategies share a common objective: to generate superior investment returns with less risk than reference benchmarks over a full market cycle (which we define as a bear market plus a bull market in succession).

Historically, the performance pattern of our equity strategies has been characterized by protection in declining or volatile markets (when investors exhibit risk-seeking behaviors) and participation in rising markets (when investors exhibit risk-avoidant behaviors).

If we consistently construct a diversified portfolio of reasonably valued stocks of higher quality companies with sustainable business models and are appropriately patient with our investment thesis, we believe our approach will generate competitive risk-adjusted returns.