The Fund’s investment strategy aims to remain fully exposed to the international developed stock market, with cash exposure being maintained to a minimum, which may be, where practicable, equitised using index futures.

Benefits of investing in the BlackRock Advantage Hedged International Equity Fund

• BlackRock Expertise. The portfolio of stocks to which the Fund is exposed is managed by BlackRock's Systematic Active Equity team. The team consists of highly qualified and experienced portfolio managers, strategists and researchers located in the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific.

• Diversification. In contrast to a direct investment in a single company, the Fund provides broad Australian dollar hedged exposure to the international developed stock market.

• Proven Track Record. The Systematic Active Equity team uses a proven, risk-controlled systematic process that is constantly being improved, to maximise its potential to deliver competitive returns to investors.

This product is likely to be appropriate for a consumer as a satellite allocation, seeking capital growth with a high to very high risk/return profile. Advised consumers only.

About the Fund

The Fund aims to outperform the MSCI World ex-Australia Net TR Index (hedged in AUD) (Benchmark) by 2% p.a. over rolling 3- year periods (net of fees and before the cost of hedging), while maintaining a similar level of investment risk to the Benchmark.

Our investment style is based on our belief that people, leveraged by technology, are central to the consistent achievement of our clients' investment goals. A single, global investment philosophy unites all BlackRock systematic (quantitative) investment strategies. Knowledgeable investment people leveraging their skills through the extensive use of technology is a hallmark of our systematic investment approach.

We believe that a focus on total performance management is the best way to achieve superior investment results. Through total performance management, we aim to understand; measure; forecast; and manage the three dimensions of investment performance — return, risk and cost.

Investment strategy

The Fund's investment strategy aims to remain fully exposed to the international developed stock market, with cash exposure being maintained to a minimum, which may be, where practicable, equitised using index futures.

The Fund and Underlying Fund may also hold a small allocation of cash (or cash equivalents that may include units in other BlackRock funds) for cash flow management purposes.

How we invest your money

The Fund's research driven investment process utilises a combination of active stock selection strategies across international developed markets that aim for the best trade-off between returns, risk and costs. The investment ideas blend local investment insights, cross-border insights, macro- economic insights and short-term drivers of stock returns and are grouped into three broad areas:

• Fundamentals. Our disciplined approach to valuing each company focuses on buying stocks that are trading inexpensively relative to the intrinsic value of the business and also assesses earnings quality through a systematic and comprehensive analysis of reported financial statements and corporate activity that identifies companies which offer superior returns to shareholders, as well as those with a higher-than-average risk of disappointment;
• Sentiment. The behaviour and insight of other equity market participants, other companies and information from other financial markets can be a useful guide to expected share price performance. The activity and insight of sell-side analysts, hedge funds, company management and the performance of linked companies can be used to assess which stocks will outperform. Fast moving reversal and sentiment insights can capture the impact of liquidity and flows on stock. Some of this sentiment is captured via sophisticated analysis of unstructured data such as text; and
• Themes. Based on stock exposures to economic and market trends, thematic and cross-border signals position the portfolio towards certain industries, styles, countries and markets. Exporter versus domestic baskets are traded against changing macro information (for example growth, currencies, rates and monetary policy).

Investment risk is managed by diversifying across many countries and currencies, and by holding the stocks of a large number of companies within each country.

To achieve its investment objective the Fund invests in the BlackRock Advantage International Equity Fund (Underlying Fund), another fund managed by us that has the same (unhedged) investment strategy as the Fund. The Fund also invests in currency forward contacts, which are used to implement the passive currency hedge. The Underlying Fund gains exposure to the international developed market stocks that form the Benchmark.