Crawford | Equity Strategies

Our equity strategies are designed to provide attractive long-term returns while protecting capital in down markets. A common theme across our equity products is the identification of undervalued, high-quality companies that have consistently growing businesses, pay dividends and have strong balance sheets.

We focus on stocks with a history of paying dividends. Dividends are important from an income standpoint, but they are also an indicator of quality and business consistency. The goal is to provide an equity portfolio that offers value and produces above-average dividend yield and above-average dividend growth. We believe this will lead to competitive returns over a full market cycle and a lower-than-average risk profile.

CORE EQUITY STRATEGY

The Core Equity strategy is a “best ideas” total investment return portfolio of dividend-paying companies. We use a bottom up, fundamental investment approach focused on high-quality stocks. Portfolio holdings are primarily based on individual research analyst conviction levels (“best ideas”). The result is a portfolio of consistent businesses from across the capitalization spectrum that have a catalyst for future price appreciation.

Inception: 1/1/2000
Approach: Fundamental, Bottom Up
Style: All Cap Core
Emphasis: Dividends, High Quality, Attractive Valuation

DIVIDEND GROWTH STRATEGY

This is a long-term, value-oriented investment approach that seeks an attractive combination of above average dividend yield and above average dividend growth. In- depth, fundamental research is conducted on new and existing holdings. This high-quality bias and propensity to pay increased dividends helps us achieve our objectives of attractive, risk-adjusted total return, income, and growth of income.

Inception: 1/1/1981
Approach: Fundamental, Dividend Growth
Style: Large Cap Value
Emphasis: High Quality, Dividend Consistency, Dividend Yield

DIVIDEND YIELD STRATEGY

The approach is long term, total investment return oriented, and seeks to provide a high and growing stream of dividend income. A thorough, bottom up investment research process and adequate diversification are priorities. The stock selection criteria are focused on total return, expected contribution to portfolio yield, and quality. In this portfolio, quality implies both safety of the dividend and predictability around total investment return potential, among others. We seek to position the portfolio at the intersection of higher quality and higher yielding stocks.

Inception: 10/1/2010
Approach: Quantitative with Fundamental Research
Style: Large Cap Value
Emphasis: Dividend Yield, Attractive Valuation, High Quality

SMALL CAP STRATEGY

The Small Cap equity portfolio seeks total return in a less efficient area of the stock market while at the same time attempting to exploit a behavioral bias amongst investors. Smaller company stocks tend to have less research coverage, and we believe that long term investors can gain an information advantage and capture inefficiencies through an exhaustive, due diligence process. Further, we found that many investors seek higher returns and chase lower quality businesses when investing in smaller company stocks. This so-called “lottery effect” can provide opportunities for price sensitive investors in high-quality, dividend-paying companies that demonstrate consistency in their business.

Inception: 1/1/2012
Approach: Fundamental Research with Quantitative Risk Management
Style: Small Cap Core
Emphasis: Dividend Yield, Attractive Valuation, High Quality

SMID CAP STRATEGY

Inception: 11/1/2012
Approach: Quantitative with Fundamental Research
Style: Small-to-Mid Cap Value
Emphasis: Dividends, High Quality, Attractive Valuation

MANAGED INCOME STRATEGY

The Managed Income portfolio’s primary objective is current income. This is achieved by owning common and preferred stocks, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), and energy infrastructure companies, among other securities (including fixed-income investments). All securities are publicly traded and there are no K-1s. Investment decisions are based on fundamental research.

Inception: 4/1/2014
Approach: Quantitative with Fundamental Research
Style: Multi-Asset Income
Emphasis: Diversified Income

The SMID Cap equity portfolio seeks total return by investing in higher quality small and medium sized companies. The lower portion of the capitalization spectrum is less efficient and often a higher growth area of the stock market. This component of the stock market also offers investors the opportunity to benefit from owning higher quality, dividend paying companies. Some of the companies are more mature, while others are at an earlier stage of their life cycle, but all have placed some priority on returning capital to shareholders. As is the case with all Crawford strategies, the dividend is utilized as the initial indicator of quality. The combination of higher predictability, higher potential growth, and less efficiency due to fewer research analysts covering this space can lead to multiple return advantages over a full market cycle. A team-based, value-oriented approach focused on in-depth, fundamental research and analysis is utilized.