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Philosophy
Beutel, Goodman’s fundamental bottom-up value investment philosophy is grounded in a highly disciplined proprietary research process, with a focus on capital preservation, absolute risk reduction, and downside protection in declining markets.
Approach
Equity Management:
Beutel Goodman’s concentrated, high-conviction equity management approach incorporates the following key principles:
- The equity team takes a unique approach to investing, starting with the opening premise that they are looking to own 25-35 great franchises forever. The stock selection process is based on buying these great franchises at a significant discount to their business value—a minimum 50% discount to the team’s intrinsic value calculations.
- Beutel Goodman’s investment process is based on the belief that risk is absolute and the avoidance of capital loss is the key to compound growth.
- The team believes that owning high-quality, undervalued companies and taking a long-term view can deliver above-average risk-adjusted returns to clients through market cycles.
- The team eliminates the noise. Sector and stock weights are outcomes of investment decisions based solely on bottom-up fundamentals and business quality (with a focus on a business’s competitive position, return on investment profile, balance sheet strength, management alignment, and other ESG factors), not top-down macro variables.
- Beutel Goodman recognizes that things won’t always go as planned. For every stock in the portfolios, both a target price and a downside limit are set. The team’s rules-based process for managing portfolios is rigid, mechanical, and most importantly repeatable and is designed to remove emotions from critical decision points.
Fixed Income Management:
The fixed income team has the experience and expertise to effectively interpret the yield curve and prevailing interest rate environment. Employing proprietary tools in a risk/reward process, their insights seek to add value to the benchmark over an economic cycle.
Beutel Goodman continuously challenges the consensus to search for opportunities where the market has mispriced risk and reward. The fixed income team:
- Forecasts interest rates to assess optimal duration and yield curve positioning throughout the economic cycle.
- Actively adjusts portfolio positioning to seek to maximize return while mitigating downside risks.
- Conducts rigorous independent credit research to identify corporate bonds with the best risk/reward potential.
- Considers ESG issues not only as potential areas of concern, but also as opportunities for investment.