Investment Strategies

The Brandes Enhanced Income Strategy seeks to achieve current income and long-term capital appreciation by investing primarily in a combination of undervalued equity and fixed income securities of both U.S. and non-U.S. issuers. It primarily invests in United States government and agency debt, corporate debt obligations, and cash equivalents, plus equity securities of issuers whose market capitalization ranks in the top 250 companies worldwide. The strategy is not subject to any specific geographic diversification requirements. The typical proportion of equity to fixed income securities is expected to be 30% equity to 70% fixed income. While we have some flexibility to vary this proportion, and market price action may also impact the ratio, the equity proportion of the strategy is likely to remain in the range of 25% to 35%.

The strategy uses a blended benchmark of 70% Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index and 30% S&P Developed $25 Billion Plus Index (rebalanced daily).

In September 2016 the strategy benchmark changed from gross of withholding tax to net of withholding tax, effective back to the inception date of the strategy. The change was made to better reflect our expectation for an investor’s actual experience.