Category: Open Ended Investment Company
The Share Class is a share class of a Fund which aims to achieve a return on your investment, through a combination of capital growth and income on the Fund’s assets, which reflects the return of the MSCI World Minimum Volatility Index, the Fund’s benchmark index. The Share Class also aims to reduce the impact of exchange rate fluctuations between the Fund's underlying portfolio currencies and Euro on your returns. The Share Class, via the Fund, invests in equity securities (e.g. shares) that, so far as possible and practicable, make up the benchmark index, combined with foreign currency contracts for currency hedging. The benchmark index aims to reflect the performance characteristics of a subset of securities within the MSCI World Index (“Parent Index”) with the lowest absolute volatility of returns, subject to risk diversification. The constituents of the benchmark index are selected using a minimum volatility strategy which selects securities from the Parent Index based on estimates of the risk profile and expected volatility of each constituent and the correlation between all constituents in the Parent Index. Volatility of returns measures the movements in the daily price of the constituents over a period of time. The Parent Index measures the performance of equity markets in developed countries worldwide. Companies are included in the Parent Index based on the proportion of their shares in issue that are available for purchase by international investors. The Fund uses optimising techniques to achieve a similar return to its benchmark index. These techniques may include the strategic selection of certain securities that make up the benchmark index or other securities which provide similar performance to certain constituent securities. These may also include the use of financial derivative instruments (FDIs) (i.e. investments the prices of which are based on one or more underlying assets). FDIs (including FX forward contracts) may be used for direct investment purposes. The Fund may also engage in short-term secured lending of its investments to certain eligible third parties to generate additional income to off-set the costs of the Fund. Recommendation: This Fund is suitable for medium to long term investment, though the Fund may also be suitable for shorter term exposure to the Index. Your shares will be accumulating shares (i.e. income will be included in their value). The Fund’s base currency is US Dollar. Shares for this Share Class are denominated in Euro. The performance of your shares may be affected by this currency difference. Your shares will be “hedged” with the aim of reducing the effect of exchange rate fluctuations between their denominated currency and the Fund’s underlying portfolio currencies. The hedging strategy may not completely eliminate currency risk and, therefore, may affect the performance of your shares.