Sustainable Growth Advisers, LP (“SGA”) is an investment management firm
specializing in large cap growth equities. SGA was formed in 2003 and is a registered
investment advisor1 under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.
Virtus Partners, Inc., has a controlling 75% ownership interest in SGA with the remaining
25% ownership interest held by SGA’s individual limited partners. Virtus Partners, Inc.,
also has a 100% ownership interest in SGIA, LLC, the general partner for SGA. Virtus
Partners, Inc., is 100% owned by Virtus Investment Partners, Inc. (“Virtus”), a US
publicly traded company on the NASDAQ.
SGA is also registered as a portfolio manager in the Province of Ontario and passported
into the Provinces of Alberta and Quebec, and SGA is an exempt fund manager in the
Provinces of Ontario, Alberta and Quebec. SGA operates as an independent affiliate of
Virtus.
SGA is retained by clients on a discretionary basis and authorized to determine and direct
execution of portfolio transactions within the client’s specified investment objectives
without consultation with its clients on a transaction-by-transaction basis. Specific
investment objectives and/or restrictions within SGA’s large cap growth strategy are
negotiated prior to execution of SGA’s Investment Advisory Agreement. SGA’s strategy
seeks to preserve and grow capital by investing in predictable, sustainable, above-average
growth companies whose earnings and cash flow growth can be sustained over a long
period of time through pricing power, recurring revenues and global opportunity. There
are approximately 100-120 companies that meet the characteristics that SGA looks for at
any time and that have passed our rigorous fundamental research process. We call this
group of companies our Qualified Company List (“Qualified List”). We then build client
portfolios from the Qualified List by selecting those companies where SGA has the
highest conviction in the current business quality fundamentals, forecast growth
opportunity and valuation based on our proprietary cash flow based valuation discipline.
Portfolios usually hold 25 to 35 companies diversified across multiple sectors and
industries. We ensure the portfolio is prudently diversified by investing no more than
25% of the portfolio in any one industry, no more than 40% in any one sector and no
more than 8% in any one company. The investment
team utilizes a model portfolio
template that serves as a guideline for investing new accounts. Each portfolio within the
large cap growth strategy follows the same disciplined investment process and
consequently, the holdings in each account are similar except where specific client
guidelines and/or objectives may cause deviations. SGA offers U.S. Large Cap Growth
(“U.S. Portfolio”), Global Growth (“Global Portfolio”), Emerging Markets Growth
(“Emerging Markets Portfolio”), International Growth (“International Portfolio”) and
Global Mid Cap Growth (“Global Mid Cap Portfolio”) portfolios, as well as,
concentrated “Focused” portfolios of our best ideas for both U.S. and Global. The U.S.,
1 Registered Investment Advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training.
Global and Emerging Markets portfolios represent the vast majority of our total assets
under management.
SGA has the ability to construct specialty portfolios (portfolio variation strategies) built
from the same Qualified List that is the product of our investment teams’ collective
fundamental research effort. The investment team manages portfolios as close to the
model template as possible. When there is an investment action (defined as a change to
any of SGA’s model portfolio templates) securities are generally purchased and sold
across all of the portfolio accounts, resulting in minimal dispersion across accounts.
However, there may be some deviation depending on specific client restrictions or cash
flows.
For its investment advisory services, SGA receives a percentage of assets under
management, see Item 5: Fees and Calculation for further information. The firm uses
unaffiliated broker-dealers to execute portfolio transactions and generally the client
leaves broker selection to SGA, although occasionally a client may direct the use of a
particular broker-dealer to execute portfolio transactions. SGA also provides investment
advisory services through several unified managed account programs utilizing the large
cap growth strategy as described above. SGA receives a portion of the unified managed
account fee for this service.
SGA’s total Assets under Advisement as of 12/31/2023 were $26.499 billion;
discretionary “regulatory” Assets under Management totaled $23.947 billion and
model/emulation “non-regulatory” assets under contract (advisement) totaled $2.552
billion.