Investment Approach

The Fund aims to provide a return on your investment (generated through an increase in the value of the assets held by the Fund and/or income received from those assets), by tracking closely the performance of the ICE ESG Global Corporate Ex GBP Index, the Fund’s benchmark index. The Fund is passively managed and the Investment Manager (IM) has limited discretion to select the Fund’s investments and in doing so may take into consideration the benchmark index. The Fund invests in fixed income securities (such as bonds) that make up the benchmark index and, at the time of purchase, comply with the credit rating requirements of the benchmark index. The Fund’s benchmark index measures the performance of fixed income securities issued by companies in global markets excluding issues denominated in Pounds Sterling. The Fund’s benchmark index also seeks to exclude issuers based on the index provider's environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings and exclusionary criteria. The index provider seeks to limit and/or exclude from the benchmark index corporate issuers which are determined by the index provider (often by reference to specific revenue thresholds or to any connection to an activity regardless of any revenue received) as having exposure to, or other ties with, certain activities including: controversial weapons, tobacco, nuclear weapons, civilian firearms, thermal coal, oil sands, fossil fuel reserves, oil and gas equipment and services, oil and gas extraction and production. Issuers that are classified by the index provider as violating United Nations Global Compact principles (which are widely accepted corporate sustainability principles that meet fundamental responsibilities in areas such as anti-corruption, human rights, labour and environmental) are also excluded from the benchmark index. The benchmark index excludes companies which score below a certain Sustainalytics ESG Rating which are identified by the index provider as being involved in controversies that have a negative ESG impact on their operations and/or products and services based on a Sustainalytics ESG controversy score.