A core/satellite approach
The investment world has long debated whether a passive or active strategy is
more effective.
- A passive strategy, such as an index or exchange-traded fund (ETF), seeks to mirror the market in holdings and returns with minimal cost.
- An active strategy attempts to beat the market by investing in a unique portfolio of securities.
We pair the two strategies — utilizing passive funds as the core of your portfolio and enhancing it with active managers who can provide the opportunity for excess returns.
Carefully selected active managers
The process of identifying and evaluating active managers is a long and rigorous one, utilizing quantitative and qualitative analysis, as well as ongoing internal debate
and discussion.
- We look for managers who have historically outperformed their peer groups and benchmarks over various market cycles and environments, identifying the decisions that added value — such as sector bets, stock picking or tactical positioning.
- We communicate directly with selected management teams to better understand their investment philosophy and process to determine if we believe their strategies are repeatable and can provide value in the future.
- We select managers with a specialized tactical experience (such as flexible allocation funds or a manager with a contrarian approach) as well as those who operate in less efficient markets (namely, international small cap, emerging and frontier markets) and have the market insight to exploit those inefficiencies.
- We regularly monitor our approved managers to ensure they continue to add value and adhere to their processes.