AGF U.S. Large Cap Growth Equity Strategy
Approach
Fundamental, bottom up.
Cap
Large Cap
Benchmark
S&P 500 Index
Inception Date
June 1957
Key Reasons to Invest
1
Distinct Investment Philosophy: Concentrated, high-conviction approach to investing in leading companies throughout changing market cycles.
2
Focus on Innovation and Market Leaders: Ability to invest in all sectors that exhibit market leadership and innovation resulting in a portfolio of “best ideas” that is differentiated from the broad market.
3
Experienced Team: Long track record of managing the strategy through a variety of market environments.
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. Every stock the team holds is a buy each day, or it is sold. The team uses an opportunistic bottom-up approach with front-end quantitative screens to identify high-quality, large-cap U.S. growth companies that can successfully generate sustainable above-average growth for revenues, earnings and cash flow.
Investment Process
Our investment process employs a fundamental, bottom-up and macro-consideration approach. Our universe contains 1,900+ U.S. companies with market capitalizations of US$2 billion and above. First, quantitative screens narrow the investible universe to 350+ stocks. Next, qualitative screens continue to narrow the investible universe to 200+ stocks. A catalyst identification further reduces the universe to 100+ companies, singling out potential purchase candidates.
In order to determine the optimal growth candidates, in-depth analysis and due diligence is performed for each company. This step confirms that these companies exhibit the potential for sustained growth as well as continued innovation in their products and services.
The resulting portfolio consists of 30-50 companies that exhibit strong growth characteristics. The typical range for position weights is 1-8%. There will be representation in at least 8 of the 11 GICS sectors comprising the U.S. equity market, as represented by the S&P 500 Index.
Our team's utilization of a bottom-up investment process results in a high conviction portfolio of 30 -50 stocks that exhibit above-average growth characteristics.
Investment Process
- Market cap of US$2 billion and above 1,900+ stocks
-
1. Quantitative Screens
- Revenue growth
- Earnings growth
- Positive revisions
- Rising cash flow
- 350+ stocks
-
2. Fundamental Analysis
- New products or services
- R&D productivity
- Macro developments
- Corporate announcements
- 200+ stocks
-
3. Initial Candidates Result of Catalyst Identification
- Attractive valuation
- Relative strength
- 100+ stocks
- Market leaders
- High conviction
- Innovation
- Thematic beneficiaries
- 30 - 50 names
Investment Team
Mike Archibald serves as a portfolio manager of AGF Investments' U.S., Global and Canadian Growth Equity strategies. He uses a bottom-up investment approach that leverages quantitative, fundamental and technical inputs to identify companies with strong earnings growth and momentum, high-quality management and solid free cash flow.
Mike joined AGF Investments as an Associate Portfolio Manager in 2015, focusing on research, analysis and selection of North American equities. Before joining AGF Investments, Mike was a Portfolio Manager with Aurion Capital Management Inc. where he was responsible for research, security selection and portfolio management of equity investments for pension plan clients. Prior to that, he was with Computerized Portfolio Management Services (CPMS), an equity research firm providing fundamental and quantitative investment data to institutional and retail money managers.
Mike holds an Honours Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Wilfrid Laurier University and is also a CFA®, CMT and CAIA charterholder.
Auritro Kundu serves as a portfolio manager of AGF Investments' U.S., Global and Canadian Growth Equity strategies. A staunch believer that innovation can be found in every industry, his investment philosophy is rooted in identifying innovative companies who boast strong earnings growth, free cash flow and return on equity.
Auritro joined AGF Investments in 2015 and previously served as an Analyst responsible for fundamental research and analysis of the Information Technology and Consumer Discretionary sectors. Prior to joining AGF Investments, he was an Equity Research Associate Analyst at National Bank Financial, where he was responsible for coverage of Canadian Information Technology equipment companies. Prior to that, he worked at Rogers Communications in corporate development and at Research in Motion in product management.
Auritro has a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto and earned an MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.
Portfolio Manager under AGF Investments Inc. and AGF Investments America Inc.
Abhishek Ashok
M.A., MFE, CFA®
Richard Fisher
M.A. (Econ.)
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®
Lillian Zhang
MBA, CFA®
Sam Mitter
MBA
Jonathan Lo
MBA
Izabela Siwoski Uliana
LLB (hons), CIM
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.