The fund’s investment strategy is based on building an equity portfolio that aims to provide returns similar to those of the Global equity market but with lower absolute volatility than the global market over the full market cycle.

To provide returns similar to those of a global equity index, but with significantly lower absolute volatility and superior downside protection, over the longer term.

Benefits of investing in Acadian Funds

Investing in one of the funds allows you to take advantage of a team of investment professionals helping to make the most of your money.

Alliance with Acadian LLC and Acadian Australia

Each of the funds is offered to you by Colonial First State through an alliance with Acadian LLC and Acadian Australia, providing you the opportunity to have your investment managed by a well established investment manager.

Professional investment management

The Acadian investment managers are among the leaders in their field who follow a disciplined investment process using a combination of investment experience, expertise and sophisticated research.

Award winning service

We are committed to delivering superior client service and administration which has been recognised through many industry awards.

FirstNet e-Post

e-Post is the fast and secure way to submit original forms and requests via FirstNet, our secure online service. You no longer need to post the originals, saving you time and effort. You will receive an instant email confirmation when you submit your request and a reference number. You must only submit original forms.

About the Fund

The Acadian Global Managed Volatility Equity Fund (The Fund) is an actively managed, equity investment strategy that seeks to capture returns similar to that of a global equity index, but with significantly lower absolute volatility and superior downside protection over the long term. Limiting absolute risk has the potential to allow investors to compound wealth more efficiently and steadily.

Investment objective

To deliver returns in line with the MSCI All Country World Index (AUD) over rolling three-year periods (after fees and taxes), with significantly less risk. Limiting absolute risk has the potential to allow investors to compound wealth more efficiently and steadily than traditional capitalisation-weighted indices. The Fund aims to achieve at least 95% of the return of the MSCI All-Country World Index over rolling three-year periods before fees and taxes.

Investment philosophy and process

Acadian believes that the larger the pool of potential investments, the greater the opportunity an active manager has to add value. Acadian believes that stocks and markets have many attributes that are related to potential outperformance, and that a successful investment approach must be multi-faceted and highly adaptable. Acadian believes that objectivity is crucial to investment success.

Acadian's investment philosophy is founded on these observations:

1. Markets are inefficient because many investors do not always act rationally
2. Investors have mental models' of how stock prices are set, but these frequently change due to both external and internal (psychological) factors.
3. Markets are adaptive, investment strategies go in and out of favour, and risk/reward relationships change over time.

This suggests value-added can best be generated by:

• Knowing the value of different pieces of information at different points in time in an objective, quantified and disciplined way Applying this value to a broad opportunity set

• Employing dynamic investment strategies adapted to the current market environment

• Utilising a disciplined, systematic stock selection process.

Acadian's investment process is quantitative, active and bottom-up. Acadian employs structured stock and peer group valuation models that are customised to each market. These models are designed to capture a broad range of characteristics such as valuation, earnings potential, financial quality and price movements. Stock factors are used to assess how well each stock in Acadian's universe is likely to perform relative to its peer group. Acadian also applies separate models to forecast peer group returns, and then adds a peer group forecast to each stock forecast.

Acadian combines the factor data and determines a return forecast for each stock. The end result is a ranking of the entire 33,500-stock universe from most to least attractive. Acadian then uses a sophisticated portfolio optimisation system to trade off the expected return of the stocks with such considerations as the benchmark, desired level of risk, transaction cost estimates and other requirements. Country and sector weights fall out of the bottom-up stock selection process, with overall portfolio risk control ensuring the desired level of diversification.

How we invest your money

The fund's investment strategy is based on building an equity portfolio that aims to provide returns similar to those of the Global equity market but with lower absolute volatility than the global market over the full market cycle. The fund aims to exploit the low volatility anomaly', the historical pattern in which higher volatility stocks have underperformed lower volatility stocks on a risk adjusted basis. The initial consideration in constructing the portfolio is its overall level of risk; in addition, the fund uses the same stock forecasts as Acadian's other equity strategies. These forecasts are designed to incorporate characteristics such as quality, value, earnings growth, and price related factors. The fund invests in a diversified portfolio of equities worldwide, including North America and Europe. The fund does not hedge currency risk.

Allocation

• Global shares and cash: 100%