Robeco Emerging Stars Equities IE EUR

In May, emerging markets declined by 1.1% in EUR, thereby outperforming their developed counterparts, which declined 1.5%. Year-to-date, emerging markets also outperformed their developed counterparts, with returns of -6.3% and -7.6% respectively. The Federal Reserve delivered a 50 basis points rate hike and announced plans for balance sheet tightening to tackle runaway inflation. Energy extended its rally amid attempts by the EU to ban Russian oil imports, while most metal prices fell on the economic slowdown in China. The strongest region was Latin America, with the highest returns for Colombia, Chile and Brazil. The weakest region was the Middle East, with profit-taking after the strong rally year-to-date. Hungary was the worst-performing country after announcing a new windfall profits tax for companies. Many emerging countries continued to raise interest rates, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, India, Malaysia, Brazil and Mexico. The key exception was China, where the 5-year loan prime rate was cut by 0.15%, followed by a pledge for more policy support along with the gradual relaxation of Covid restrictions in Shanghai.

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.

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.