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Focused Absolute Value®

Objective(s)

  • Long-term total return = Russell 3000 Value index plus a minimum of 200 bps
  • Achieve objectives in a manner that is consistent with established style and risk expectations

Strategy facts

Inception
January 1, 2009
Strategy assets
$533MM
Benchmark
Russell 3000 Value
Target # of holdings
20 to 30
Market cap range
> $250MM
Vehicles

Separate account, model portfolio, mutual fund

For details on the AMG River Road Focused Absolute Value Fund, click here

Portfolio managers

R. Andrew Beck
Chief Executive Officer & Senior Portfolio Manager
R. Andrew Beck
Chief Executive Officer & Senior Portfolio Manager

Andrew is River Road’s Chief Executive Officer, responsible for establishing and driving the firm’s business strategy. Additionally, he is a senior portfolio manager for River Road’s Small Cap Value and Small-Mid Cap Value strategies, a portfolio manager for the Mid Cap Value portfolio, and a supervising portfolio manager for the Focused Absolute Value® portfolios. He is Chair of the Executive Committee and Investment Oversight Committee. Andrew co-founded River Road in 2005 and holds equity in the firm.

Prior Experience

  • Senior Research Analyst, Senior Vice President, and Portfolio Manager, SMC Capital Inc.

Education

  • MBA, F.W. Olin School at Babson College
  • BS in Finance, University of Louisville

Alex Brown
Chief Investment Officer
Alex Brown
Chief Investment Officer

Alex is River Road’s Chief Investment Officer, responsible for promoting investment process alignment across all strategies with the firm’s investment philosophy and leading the research and data management functions. Additionally, he is a supervising portfolio manager for River Road’s Focused Absolute Value® portfolios. Alex previously served as Director of Research for River Road. He is a non-voting member of the Executive Committee and a member of the Investment Oversight Committee. Alex joined River Road in 2010 and holds equity in the firm.

Prior Experience

  • Associate, Consumer & Retail Investment Banking, Wachovia Capital Markets LLC
  • Section Chief and Senior Analyst, Officer Promotions Analysis, HQ Air Force Personnel Center
  • Officer Operations Analyst, HQ Air Force Personnel Center
  • Captain and Lieutenant, United States Air Force

Education

  • MBA, Harvard Business School
  • BS in Operations Research as a Distinguished Graduate, United States Air Force Academy
Ashley Abney, CPA
Associate Portfolio Manager, Derived Strategies
Ashley Abney, CPA
Associate Portfolio Manager, Derived Strategies

Ashley is an associate portfolio manager for River Road’s Focused Absolute Value® portfolios, responsible for operational and trading activities and working with the supervising portfolio managers to develop and manage client communications. Additionally, she maintains select analyst responsibilities and serves as analyst support for other strategies at the firm. Prior to her promotion to the investment team in 2009, Ashley held responsibilities across several operational functions. She joined River Road in 2006 and holds equity in the firm. 

Prior Experience

  • Customer Service Representative, Associated Insurance Services

Education

  • BS in Economics, Centre College

Certifications/Affiliations

  • CPA designation
  • Kentucky Society of CPAs member
Information is as of December 31, 2023

Annualized returns (%)

Composite - Gross Composite - Net Russell 3000 Value Out/ underperformance - Gross Out/ underperformance - Net

Calendar year returns (%)

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. There is a risk that invested capital may be lost. Performance is shown gross and net of fees. Performance for periods shorter than one year is not annualized.

Portfolio characteristics & risk statistics

Portfolio Russell 3000 Value

Top 10 holdings (%)

Symbol Security Name % Portfolio

Sector exposure (%)

Sector allocation vs. benchmark weight (%)

Disclaimer

Information is as of December 31, 2023. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. There is a risk that invested capital may be lost.

Strategy assets: Total assets combine River Road’s (1) total firm assets (as defined by GIPS®) and (2) advisory-only assets (no control over implementation of investment decisions and no trading authority). Total assets provided as supplemental information and advisory-only assets are reported on a one-month lag.

Investment guidelines (such as market cap, number of holdings, etc.): Are working policies and, as such, may vary depending on market conditions and other factors and are subject to change without notification. At the time of anew account funding, positioning is determined at the portfolio manager’s discretion and may include purchases/positioning outside of stated limits based on various factors.

Target # of holdings: May change over time. The actual number of holdings is at the portfolio manager’s discretion and may be outside of the target range for any length of time.

Market cap range: Additional shares may be purchased outside of this range subject to max market cap.

Maximum market cap: Includes appreciation. Timing of exit at the portfolio manager’s discretion with the ability to exit over several months.

EBITDA: Excludes banks, thrifts, and insurers.

Price/earnings: Excludes negative earnings.

Long-term growth estimates: Based on ordinary shares for all ADR securities held.

Standard deviation, Jensen’s alpha, beta: Based on trailing 60-month gross of fee composite performance.

Dollar turnover: Average calendar year turnover. Dollar turnover, the lesser of purchases or sales as a percentage of the average market value, is presented as an average of all portfolios in the composite. If one portfolio is not in the composite for the entire period, turnover is the average annualized turnover of all portfolios in the composite at the end of the period.

GICS sector breakdown: Reflects percent of total portfolio; stocks without a reported sector are not presented.

Index data source: London Stock Exchange Group PLC and its group undertakings (collectively, the “LSE Group”), © LSE Group.

Compliance Statement: River Road Asset Management, LLC (“RRAM”) claims compliance with the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS®). A GIPS Report is available upon request by contacting RRAMCompliance@riverroadam.com.

Composite Description: The Focused Absolute Value® composite contains fully discretionary accounts that seek capital appreciation by investing primarily in equity securities that trade at a discount to our valuation as determined using RRAM’s proprietary Absolute Value® approach. RRAM selects securities from a universe of companies that are held by other RRAM strategies, which typically includes all market capitalizations. If a holding is liquidated from all RRAM portfolios, the stock must be sold from the Focused Absolute Value® portfolio within a reasonable period of time (typically less than 30 days). RRAM employs a value-driven, bottom-up fundamental approach. The team of analysts involved with recommending investments for Focused Absolute Value® has changed and may continue to change over time.

Benchmark Description: The official benchmark for the composite is the Russell 3000 Value. All other indices are shown for additional information only. Composite performance may differ materially from the indices as the composite only invests in a subset of the securities contained in the indices and also invests in securities not contained in the indices.

Performance and Fees: The U.S. dollar is the currency used to express performance and includes the reinvestment of income. Composite performance is presented gross of foreign withholding taxes on dividends, interest income, and capital gains. All composite performance is after the deduction of trading costs. Net of fee performance is calculated using actual management fees. For periods including non-fee paying accounts, net was calculated for those accounts by applying the highest fee schedule effective at that time. Unless otherwise noted, performance provided for periods greater than one year is annualized.

Trademark: GIPS® is a registered trademark of CFA Institute. CFA Institute does not endorse or promote this organization, nor does it warrant the accuracy or quality of the content contained herein.

Holdings: The information provided in this report should not be considered a recommendation to purchase or sell any particular security. There is no assurance that any securities discussed herein will remain in our portfolio at the time you receive this report or that securities sold have not been repurchased. Characteristics and sector weightings of our portfolio are shown and may not be indicative of this strategy’s current or future investments. It should not be assumed that any of the holdings discussed herein were or will be profitable or that the investment recommendations or decisions we make in the future will be profitable or will equal the investment performance of the securities discussed herein. This information is shown as supplemental information only and complements the full disclosure presentation.

Characteristics: Unless otherwise noted, share-related characteristics are provided by FactSet. Portfolio and index characteristics are based on companies’ most recent filings as of this report date (values for many companies may be as of the prior period). Most company share-related characteristics exclude outliers. Outlier exclusion methods include interquartile and inverse interquartile; the universe for determining outliers is the Russell 3000. For more information, please contact RRAM.

Attribution: Sector, Industry Group, Industry, or Sub-industry group levels are determined at the beginning of each month according to the Global Industry Classification Standard (“GICS”), developed and exclusively owned by MSCI, Inc. (“MSCI”) and Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC (“S&P”), unless otherwise stated that they have been reclassified or classified by RRAM. Reclassifications/classifications by RRAM are not supported by S&P or MSCI. All GICS data is provided “As Is” with no warranties. RRAM may classify securities that are not automatically classified by MSCI and S&P.

Contribution: Top and bottom contributors are calculated gross of fees for the most recent quarter and based on portfolio contribution to active return, which is calculated as the portfolio-weighted return relative to the overall index. For the purpose of assessing top and bottom contributors, the contribution of child securities is aggregated with that of the parent for corporate actions that occurred during the most recent calendar quarter. The performance numbers included in parentheses behind a stock’s name refer to that stock’s total gross return (dividends reinvested)and contribution to active return for the representative portfolio during the period. Unless otherwise noted, total effect is used to assess the contribution to relative return. The holdings identified do not represent all of the securities purchased, sold, or recommended. To receive information regarding the methodology for calculating the top/bottom contributors or a list showing every holding’s contribution to the overall composite and/or representative portfolio performance contact RRAMCompliance@riverroadam.com.

Representative Portfolios: Unless otherwise noted as composite, the information presented is based on a representative portfolio. If no single representative portfolio is available to represent the strategy since inception, different representative portfolios and/or the composite are used for different periods to create a continuous representative portfolio. The representative portfolio is selected by the firm as a representative account that is deemed to best represent this management style using a pre-defined, objective set of criteria. All representative portfolio data is shown as supplemental information to the composite presentation. Each client portfolio is individually managed and may vary from the information shown for the representative portfolio.