Robeco Emerging Stars Equities E EUR

In March, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index rose by 1.7% in euro terms, underperforming developed markets, which were up 6.7%. Global negative developments were the further rise in the US Treasury yields and the rising number of Covid infections in several countries. Yet positive news was the US fiscal stimulus from the pandemic relief bill and accelerated vaccinations in the US. Rising yields and growth expectations were positive for the performance of value stocks in emerging relative to growth stocks. The best emerging countries were Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Chile. Mexico was supported by the US pandemic relief bill of President Biden. The worst market was Turkey, where President Erdogan replaced the central bank governor again, after just four months. The Turkish lira was down significantly, as the new governor is known to favor structurally lower interest rates. The first quarter of the year started with a large inflow of funds into the EM asset class of around USD 65 billion.

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

In principle, this share class of the fund does distribute dividend.

Robeco Emerging Stars Equities integrates ESG factors into its investment process by analyzing the impact of financially material ESG factors to a company’s competitive position and value drivers. We believe that this enhances our ability to understand existing and potential (long-term) risks and opportunities of a company. The impact of material ESG factors can be positive or negative, reflecting risks or opportunities, that ensue from a company’s ESG analysis. If ESG risks and opportunities are significant, the ESG analysis could impact a stock’s fair value and the portfolio allocation decision. In addition to ESG integration, Robeco also has an exclusion policy and conducts proxy voting and engagement activities focused on specific themes, such as climate change, aiming to improve a company’s sustainability profile.

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 ESG (i.e. Environmental, Social and corporate Governance) characteristics within the meaning of Article 8 of the European Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation and integrates ESG and sustainability risks in the investment process. In addition, the fund applies an exclusion list on the basis of controversial behavior, products (including controversial weapons, tobacco, palm oil and fossil fuel) and countries, next to proxy voting and engagement. 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.