Robeco Emerging Stars Equities FL EUR

Emerging markets declined by 4.0% in euro terms in October, significantly lagging developed markets, which rose by 6.4%. This was mostly driven by the sharp drop for Chinese equities following the 20th China Communist Party Congress. Xi Jinping starting his third term as General Secretary was expected, but the shock was that the complete Politburo Standing Committee now consists of Xi loyalists, leading to fears about lack of checks and balances within China's leadership. In addition, China faced new US restrictions on exports of high-end semiconductor chips and chip-making equipment. This also affected the tech-heavy Taiwanese equity market, which was the second-worst emerging market in October. Other emerging equity markets actually performed quite well, with South Korea and Brazil among the better performing markets. The general elections in Brazil were another key event. Lula da Silva will return as president, while in parliament right-wing parties gained the majority. In October, many emerging countries continued to hike interest rates in line with high global inflation and the rate hike by the ECB. Finally, oil prices went back up following the announced OPEC production cuts.

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.