Objective

Seeks capital appreciation through investment in European equities with market capitalization greater than 65 million euros. Focuses exclusively on developed European markets.

Strategy

Diversify portfolio using strict controls on the level of investment in any particular industry to maximise the impact of individual stock selection – assess relative earnings strength and valuation discrepancies within industry groups, based upon the premise that stock markets are reasonably, but not perfectly, efficient; investor sentiment is considered through analysis of earnings revisions, analyst recommendations and price behavior

Fund Facts
Asset Manager	Degroof Petercam Asset Management, Brussels, Belgium
Benchmark	MSCI Europe Index
Fund Inception Date	July 12, 2010
Mimimum Investment	€50,000
Expense Ratio	1.50
ISIN	IE00B3DD4Y80

Trailing	3 Months	1 Yr	3 Yrs	5 Yrs	10 Yrs	Since Inception	Inception Date
European Equity Fund	4.57	21.24	5.05	5.5	*	6.59	12/07/2010
MSCI Europe Index	5.76	26.88	8.18	7.29	*	8.84	12/07/2010

• Q3 2019 Performance Review

  3-MONTH REVIEW

  • The Fund underperformed. In this quarter, more recent patterns continued – growth outpaced value and small cap continued to lag larger cap names.
  • By design, most of the Fund’s excess return is generated through stock selection; the biggest detractors in the quarter were holdings in Health Care, Financials, and Consumer Staples. The positive results in Information Technology, Energy, and Consumer Discretionary were not enough to offset that negative impact.
  • In Health Care, a combination of stocks owned and not owned were responsible for the bulk of the relative underperformance for the Fund in the third quarter.
  • A number of bank stocks held in the Fund were the primary detractors within Financials.
  • Within Consumer Staples, excluding tobacco companies detracted. On the other hand, holdings in brewers were positive contributors to relative return.
  • Information Technology stocks within the portfolio were another bright spot in the quarter.
  • Although the market continued to favor the largest stocks, the Fund’s bias to smaller cap names was not as big of a factor in underperformance this quarter as it had been in previous periods. Negative stock selection, particularly in the top and bottom quintiles, was the primary reason for the Fund’s underperformance.
  • Similar to the size factor, the Fund’s value bias was only a slightly negative factor in relative performance in the third quarter – negative stock selection in the highest P/E names was the primary reason for

  12-MONTH REVIEW

  • The Fund had negative stock selection in most sectors except for Information Technology, Utilities, and Real Estate. The sectors that detracted the most were Health Care, Financials, and Consumer Discretionary.
  • While underperformance was driven by a broad group of stocks across all sectors.
  • The focus on smaller capitalization stocks also detracted significantly from relative results. The value tilt also hindered performance for the period. The Fund’s overweights in lower P/E stocks and underweights in the higher P/E stocks within the index detracted.

   

   

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  Fund Fact Sheet

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