Objectives and Approach

The Fund aims to provide investment growth, consistent with a cautious risk and volatility profile, over the long term (5 years or more). The Fund invests at least 70% of its assets in a portfolio of collective investment schemes (which could include open and closed ended investment schemes, real estate investment trusts, exchange traded funds, and these could include other schemes operated by Columbia Threadneedle Investments), which provide indirect exposure to a range of global asset classes. The Fund is actively managed, and the Investment Manager is not constrained by any particular asset allocation in respect of geography, industry or sector. By investing in a portfolio of funds, rather than individual securities, the Investment Manager is able to achieve diversification across multiple fund managers, investment strategies, and asset classes. Through an extensive fund selection process, the Investment Manager believes it can identify active fund managers with the ability to generate strong risk-adjusted returns. The Fund is part of the CT Multi-Manager Universal fund range, which offers five funds with different expected combinations of investment risk and return. The Investment Manager uses a proprietary Strategic Asset Allocation model, which determines the appropriate combination of investments to ensure the Fund remains consistent with a cautious risk and volatility profile. Through the application of this model, the Fund expects to maintain a volatility range of between 6% - 8% over rolling 10 year periods, by varying the weighting of the asset types. This is the expected volatility that the Fund is managed to using internal models, and is expected to be the volatility that is observed over the long term, though may be different as market dynamics change. To reflect the cautious risk and volatility profile, the Fund will typically maintain an exposure to equities (through collective investment schemes) between 20% - 60% of the value of the portfolio. The remaining exposure will be to government and corporate bonds, including high yield and emerging market bonds, and alternative assets. Alternative assets may include funds that use absolute return strategies or funds that invest indirectly in real estate, listed infrastructure, and commodities. At the Investment Manager’s discretion, particularly in times of market stress, the Fund’s volatility may be higher or lower than the stated range if the Investment Manager believes it could mitigate potential losses. The Fund’s potential gains and losses are likely to be constrained by the aim to achieve its volatility range. As markets evolve, the volatility bands may also change if the Investment Manager believes this would keep the Fund in an overall “cautious” banding. To the extent that the Fund is not fully invested as set out above, it may also invest in other transferable securities, money market instruments, deposits, cash and near cash. Derivatives may be used for the purposes of efficient portfolio management only.