AGF Global Equity Strategy
Approach
Fundamental, bottom-up investment approach.
Cap
All Cap
Benchmark
MSCI All Country World Index
Inception Date
May 1995
Key Reasons to Invest
1
A diversified global equity strategy that invests in attractively priced quality companies
2
Experienced, disciplined team with long-tenured leadership since inception
3
Fundamental research focused on strong management and fair value, historical financial analysis and distinct competitive advantage
Overview
Strategy
The AGF Global Equity Strategy is designed for institutional investors seeking global diversification through targeted exposure to growth-oriented companies around the world. The strategy’s objective is to emphasize countries with attractive valuations, growth/sentiment and risk profiles with a core investment style and a fundamental, bottom-up investment approach. Risk management is embedded throughout portfolio management.
Philosophy
We believe combined focus on corporate economic profit (EVA) growth and country allocation drives long-term returns while controlling risk. We seek companies that can generate returns in excess of their cost of capital, thereby creating shareholder value. We emphasize countries with attractive value, growth/sentiment and risk profiles.
Process
Our investment process is based on the concept of Economic Value Added (EVA), which focuses on finding companies that, over time, will exhibit characteristics such as strong/growing cash flow generation, sales, margins and/or asset utilization.
Our process is underpinned by fundamental stock selection and aided by our disciplined country allocation framework. The global universe contains 49 countries. Political and liquidity screens eliminate a number of countries. The resulting country universe, representing more than 90% of MSCI All Country World Index by market capitalization, is then scored and ranked for valuations, growth/sentiment and risk. A minimum market cap screen of US$1.5 billion is applied in the security screening process. The remaining universe is then ranked based on historical and prospective valuation, growth and sentiment characteristics. Companies that are in the top six deciles in this analysis are included in the next screening.
Subsequent EVA analysis reduces the universe to the ‘watchlist’. Selected names are reviewed using in-depth fundamental analysis to uncover companies with strong businesses and management, unrecognized growth potential and attractive valuations. The portfolio manager imposes disciplined controls at the country, sector, company and portfolio level.
Investment Process
- 49 countries
-
1. Country Allocation Framework
- Screen: Liquidity; Political Risk
- Rank: Valuation, Growth/Sentiment, Risk
- 29 countries (10 EM, 19 Developed)
- Universe: 4,000 – 5,000 companies
-
2. Initial Analysis and Filter
- Screen: Liquidity (min. mkt. cap of US$1.5B)
- Rank: Attractive Valuation; Growth/Sentiment
- Universe: 1,500 – 2,000 companies
-
3. EVA Analysis
- Ability to generate future economic profits driven by historical value creation and/or business transformation
- Universe: reduced to a watchlist of 600 – 800 companies
-
4. Fundamental Research
- Strong management and fair value
- Distinct competitive advantage
- Historical financial analysis
- ESG analysis
-
5. Disciplined and Diversified
- Country: Minimum level of exposure to key markets
- Sector: 8 of 11 GICS sectors, +/- 15% of index
- Company: Maximum 6%
- 60 – 100 names
Investment Team
Steve Way leads portfolio management responsibilities for global equity and global dividend mandates at AGF. As the architect of the Economic Value Added (EVA)-based investment process used for these industry-leading mandates, he is supported by a team that uses its collective experience to locate opportunities unrecognized by the market. Steve is a member of The Office of the CIO – a structure within AGF’s Investment Management team. This leadership structure encourages and further embeds collaboration and active accountability across the Investment Management team and the broader organization. He is also a member of the AGF Asset Allocation Committee (AAC), which consists of senior portfolio managers who are responsible for various regions and asset classes. The AAC meets regularly to discuss, analyze and assess the macro-economic environment and capital markets in order to determine optimal asset allocation recommendations.
Steve’s industry experience began when he joined AGF in 1987. In 1991, he established AGF’s wholly owned subsidiary AGF International Advisors Company Limited in Dublin, Ireland and ran the operations as Managing Director until 1994.
Steve holds a B.A. in Administrative and Commercial Studies from the University of Western Ontario. He is a CFA® charterholder and a member of CFA® Society Toronto.
Portfolio Manager under AGF Investments Inc. and AGF Investments America Inc.
CFA® and Chartered Financial Analyst® are registered trademarks owned by CFA Institute.
Andres Perez is Co-Portfolio Manager of AGF Global Equity Fund/Class and AGF Global Dividend Fund/Class. In this role, Andres works closely with the lead PM to determine overall portfolio positioning. He also engages regularly with the research team to identify new investment opportunities and monitor the fundamentals of existing holdings.
Andres joined AGF in 2013 and has been an integral member of the AGF Global Equity Team. Andres was most recently an Associate Portfolio Manager responsible for coverage of the Industrials sector. Before joining AGF, Andres was a director with the Fundamental Investment Group at UBS, where he specialized in global and emerging market equities as a generalist for the fund. He also has previous experience as a portfolio manager at Citadel Investment Group focusing on global equities and at Moon Capital Management where he ran the global materials book for their emerging markets equity fund. Prior to that, he was Vice-President of Equity Research at Morgan Stanley, focusing on Latin American Materials, and an equity analyst for BankBoston Asset Management based in Brazil.
Andres earned a B.A. in Economics and International Relations from Tufts University and also studied at the London School of Economics. Andres is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish.
Portfolio Manager under AGF Investments Inc. and AGF Investments America Inc.
Abhishek Ashok
M.A., MFE, CFA®
Richard Fisher
M.A. (Econ.)
Georgina Goldring
CFA®
Ling Han
M.Sc., MBA, CFA®
Grace Huang
MBA, CFA®
John Kratochwil
MBA, P.Eng.
Henry Kwok
MBA
Lazar Naiker
Pulkit Sabharwal
MBA
Wai Tong
MBA, P.Eng., CFA®
Wyeth Wright
CFA®
Regina Chi
CFA®
Mark Weinberg
ASA, ACIA
The AGF Equity Analyst Team consists of individuals from AGF Investments Inc. Personnel of AGF Investment Inc., an affiliated adviser located in Canada that is not registered with the SEC, provide research services to clients of AGF Investments America Inc through an Affiliate Resource Arrangements.
CFA® and Chartered Financial Analyst® are registered trademarks owned by CFA Institute.