Gary D. Haubold

Cypress has a conservative investment style which uses a balanced approach and invests in a mix of stocks, bonds and money market funds. The firm supervises assets with emphasis on above average income, less volatility and risk, with prospects for reasonable capital growth. Their balanced investment approach generally focuses on Blue Chip stocks, US Treasuries, Corporate Bonds, and to a lesser extent, Preferred Securities, Convertible Bonds, and ETFs. This approach is designed to mitigate major loss of principal while maintaining the flexibility to profit in advancing market cycles. Cypress strives to achieve positive results by setting an asset mix and shifting it based on macroeconomic trends and investment opportunities in the equity and fixed income markets. Their typical portfolio holds 30-35 stocks and 15-20 bonds.

Chief Cornerstone Capital’s Fund seeks to invest in the equity of small and mid-cap companies that meet strict criteria for value and quality. The firm’s strategy blends fundamental analysis with quantitative techniques to identify and exploit underfollowed investment opportunities at significant discounts to intrinsic value. They consistently employ a non-consensus/contrarian approach which focuses on thought leadership versus thought follower. Chief Cornerstone Capital concentrates on the technology, financial and industrials sector. Stocks are bought or shorted based on in-depth fundamental analysis of revenue and earnings growth, cash flow, and balance sheet data. In addition, the fund utilized an economic overlay as a basis for long/short balancing and sector weightings and partially referenced technical analysis for the timing of individual stock buy and sell decisions.

abrdn utilizes various investment approaches when managing discretionary client accounts and providing recommendations to non-discretionary clients. The firm utilizes a bottom-up, fundamental stock-picking approach, where sector, regional and country allocations are a residual of their bottom-up stock selection decisions, constrained by appropriate risk controls.

NWD's asset allocation approach is top-down and based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative criteria. Three key aspects determine the ranking of equity markets: interest rate prospects, earnings prospects and the valuation background. Significant allocation shifts are made when conviction levels are strong. There are monthly meetings for ideas generation, including the macroeconomic team, regional equity and fixed-income teams. Regional equity teams provide economic and market forecasts for each market supported by written documentation andanalysis. These forecasts are the result of bottom-up analysis of individual securities within the research universe to generate target price and rate of return forecasts, which are then aggregated to provide overall rolling twelve-month country return forecasts. NWD uses a combination of in-house and Wall Street research.

Liberty Ridge focuses on domestic equities. Liberty Ridge Capital believes it adds the greatest value over all market cycles by consistently applying a time-tested, bottom-up stock selection process that combines the use of rigorous fundamental research with quantitative techniques. Liberty Ridge Capital seeks to select securities that offer the most attractive trade-off between valuation, near-term dynamics and long-term growth. They believe that superior investment results can be achieved by investing in companies that possess an attractive valuation relative to the broad market and peer group, display positive near-term business prospects and exhibit healthy long-term earnings growth potential. LibertyRidge employs a process that defines a manageable universe of stocks by utilizing proprietary quantitative screens to narrow their focus. Fundamental research further narrows the team's top investment candidates and then a portfolio is constructed based on process and account parameters. In seeking to identify attractive investment opportunities for the Focused, Large Cap, Mid-Cap and Small Cap Funds and the blend portion of the Strategic Small Company Fund, Liberty Ridge first creates a universe of companies whose current share price seems lower than their current or future worth. They consider factors like a company's earnings power vs. its current stock price, dividend income potential, its price-to-earnings ratio vs. similar companies, competitive advantages, like brand or trade name or market niche, management team, and current and future business prospects. Lastly, using their own fundamental research and a bottom-up approach to investing, Liberty Ridge identifies those companies which are currently out of market favor but have the potential to achieve significant appreciation as the marketplace recognizes their fundamental value.