Robeco Emerging Stars Equities D USD

In April, emerging markets declined by 0.4%, thereby outperforming their developed counterparts, which declined 3.3%. Global equity markets came under pressure as a wave of negative news dampened investor sentiment. Statements by Fed officials indicated a more hawkish tone in order to combat the even higher inflation expectations. With lockdowns in certain key hubs intensifying and disruption in certain activity indicators, worries about China's economic growth outlook rose. Geopolitical tensions are hurting investor demand, with no end in sight for the war in Ukraine. Central banks in emerging markets continued their tightening stance, with South Korea, Poland, Hungary and Peru all raising interest rates. China's central bank was on the easing side, as it cut the reserve requirements ratio by 25 bps and promised to increase lending. Markets that performed poorly were to be found in Eastern Europe (Poland and Hungary) and Latin America (Brazil, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Mexico). South Africa also underperformed in April. The Middle Eastern countries performed strongly in April. Other countries that did well in April were Indonesia, Turkey, Greece and Turkey.

The fund is allowed to pursue an active currency policy to generate extra returns and can engage in currency hedging transactions.

In principle, the fund does not intend to distribute dividend and so both the income earned by the fund and its overall performance are reflected in its share price.

The fund incorporates sustainability in the investment process through exclusions, ESG integration, engagement and voting. The fund does not invest in issuers that are in breach of international norms or where activities have been deemed detrimental to society following Robeco's exclusion policy. Financially material ESG factors are integrated in the bottom-up investment analysis to assess existing and potential ESG risks and opportunities. In the stock selection the fund limits exposure to elevated sustainability risks. In addition, where a stock issuer is flagged for breaching international standards in the ongoing monitoring, the issuer will become subject to engagement. Lastly, the fund makes use of shareholder rights and applies proxy voting in accordance with Robeco's proxy voting policy.

Robeco Emerging Stars Equities is an actively managed fund that invests in emerging countries equities all over world. The selection of these shares is based on a fundamental analysis. The fund's objective is to achieve a better return than the index. The fund promotes E&S (i.e. Environmental and Social) characteristics within the meaning of Article 8 of the European Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, integrates sustainability risks in the investment process and applies Robeco’s Good Governance policy. The fund applies sustainability indicators, including but not limited to, normative, activity-based and region-based exclusions, and proxy voting. The fund selects investments based on a combination of top-down country analysis and bottom-up stock selection. We focus on companies that have both a healthy and solid business model growth prospects as a reasonable valuation. The fund has a focused, concentrated portfolio with a small number of larger bets. The majority of stocks selected will be components of the Benchmark, but stocks outside the Benchmark may be selected too. The fund can deviate substantially from the weightings of the Benchmark. The fund aims to outperform the Benchmark over the long run, whilst still controlling relative risk through the applications of limits (on VaR Ratio) to the extent of deviation from the Benchmark. This will consequently limit the deviation of the performance relative to the Benchmark. The Benchmark is a broad market weighted index that is not consistent with the ESG characteristics promoted by the fund.

Risk management is fully integrated into the investment process to ensure that positions always meet predefined guidelines.