AGF Global Select Strategy

Approach
Fundamental, bottom up, macro consideration.
Cap
All Cap
Benchmark
MSCI All Country World Index
Inception Date
February 1996

Key Reasons to Invest

1

The Strategy offers concentrated exposure to global equities while focusing on innovation as a key metric to identify companies that exhibit exceptional product development and corporate leadership

2

For investors looking for a complement to existing U.S. or Global Equity core portfolio

3

For institutional investors looking to participate in the growth potential of global equities.

Overview

Strategy

A bottom-up growth investment style that looks for companies with above-average earnings and revenue growth relative to their historical earnings, the industry or overall market.

Philosophy

The team's objective is to capture leading growth companies in every investment cycle. The team uses an opportunistic bottom-up approach with front-end quantitative screens and a catalyst identification component to identify high-quality, all-cap global growth companies that can successfully generate sustainable above-average growth for revenues, earnings and cash flow with a strong sell discipline when analysis is unfavorable.

We believe market leadership is determined by innovation, the macro-environment and thematic trends, therefore we invest in companies benefitting from new products or services and/or favorable addressable end markets.

We believe that equity market leadership changes from cycle to cycle as companies out-innovate each other and with the maturity of the economic cycle therefore we maintain objectivity by ensuring the investment thesis remains intact everyday with a willingness to purchase every stock held in the portfolio.

We also believe that stock prices reflect consensus estimates, therefore we identify catalysts yet to be incorporated into forecasts.

Process

We employ a bottom-up stock selection process based on in-depth fundamental research. Our process begins with a global investment universe of over 5,000 securities.

This universe is then narrowed to a list of 350+ companies through a variety of both qualitative and quantitative screens to identify companies in the universe that exhibit growth characteristics defined by the our team. The quantitative screens narrow the investable universe by analyzing key factors such as revenue growth, earnings growth, positive earnings revisions and rising free cash flow. Growth measures are viewed from both an absolute and relative basis, as well as a historical perspective in conjunction with an examination of sustainability into the foreseeable future.

Proprietary research models and external databases are utilized to determine these characteristics for each company. The qualitative analysis continues to narrow the investable universe to 200+ companies through on-going, targeted research. This analysis identifies strong companies with leading product or service innovations, strong management and industry leaders in attractive markets. Company valuations are constantly monitored on both an absolute and relative basis compared to a peer group and the market, and valuation is also considered on a relative basis considering the long-term growth expectations. The rigorous bottom-up research process ensures each candidate for inclusion exhibits strong fundamentals.

The catalyst identification process further reduces the universe to 100+ companies, singling out potential purchase candidates. Factors scrutinized at this stage include market share trends, research and development (R&D), free cash flow generation and profitability. These factors are included in evaluating a company's ability to grow at above average rates. Innovation and the allocation of spending to R&D are closely monitored, as is the productivity of this spending.

Our resulting high-conviction portfolio consists of 25-40 companies that exhibit strong growth characteristics.

Investment Process

GLOBAL ALL-CAP UNIVERSE
  • 5,000 stocks
Portfolio
  • 25 - 40 names
  • Market leaders
  • High conviction
  • Innovation
  • Thematic beneficiaries