As of May 25, 2021, the underlying manager of the Desjardins Global Dividend Fund, offered through the group retirement savings platform, will be modified by Desjardins Investments. More specifically, the mandate that will now be handled by Mondrian Investment Partners will be similar to the one currently managed by Epoch Investment Partners. The fund’s objective will remain the same, which is to provide dividend income and long-term capital appreciation by investing in equities and equity-linked securities issued by worldwide companies, including some, when appropriate, from emerging markets. The investment strategy will be based on a combination of a bottom-up approach for selecting securities and a top-down approach for evaluating countries and currencies. The manager will conduct robust assessments of the companies’ fundamental value to identify quality defensive securities that are undervalued on the market.
Some adjustments will be made to the fund’s investment parameters. The portfolio is expected to be more concentrated, as the minimum number of securities held will be reduced from 80 to 35. However, the active risk targeted by the mandate will be reduced, ranging from a target of 4%–8% to 3%–5%. In addition, the manager may have exposure of up to 20% in securities that do not pay dividends. The portfolio must maintain a dividend yield of at least 125% of its benchmark.
These changes will not impact the fund’s fees.
For more information about these changes, contact your client relationship manager.