Aegon Investment Grade Climate Transition Fund

Sustainable, Responsible &/or ESG Policy:

Objective:

The investment objective of the Fund is to maximize total return (income plus capital).

Policy:

Invests primarily in investment grade (lower risk) bonds in any currency and which may be at a fixed or floating rate. The fund may also hold selected high yield (higher risk) bonds, contingent convertible (higher risk) bonds and cash. Bonds will be issued by companies worldwide.

The Fund is actively managed. The Fund may also invest in derivatives (financial contracts whose value is linked to an underlying asset).

The Fund may invest up to 20% in emerging markets. In investment terms, this means those economies that are still developing.

Within the limits set out above, the Fund has discretion in its choice of investments and is not restricted by market sector. It may also hold a limited range of other investments and it is not constrained by any benchmark or index.

The Fund may use investment techniques to manage risks and costs. These  techniques include 'hedging' (using derivatives to reduce the risk associated with making investments in other currencies).

The Fund may make investments in any currency although the Investment Manager will hedge the majority of currency exposure arising from bond positions back to the Fund's Base Currency. However, at times up to 20% of the Fund's net assets may be denominated in non GBP currencies that are not hedged back to GBP.

Income the Fund receives will be reinvested and automatically reflected in the value of your shares.

The positive environmental characteristics the Fund promotes are transition to a low carbon economy and adaption to climate change by investing the majority of the Fund's net assets in issuers that have robust and credible plans to transition towards a low carbon economy based on the Investment Manager's internal climate transition categories. The Investment Manager will firstly apply an exclusionary screen to exclude investments which Investment Manager considers have a negative impact on society and/or the environment. Then will categorise issuers (including ancillary liquid assets and the underlying securities of single named derivatives) according to their level of alignment with progress towards a net-zero economy. The categories, as set out in the Investment Manager's proprietary climate categorisation system, will range from 1 to 5, with 1 being the highest category for leaders that are driving the net-zero transition i.e., “Leaders” and 5 being the lowest category for those laggards that are actively hindering climate progress i.e. “Laggards”. The focus will be on supporting issuer's energy transition using quantitative and qualitative information to increasingly invest in issuers with solid plan of energy transition and reducing and restricting exposure to whose issuers who do not have such plans. Climate categories 1 to 3 (“Leaders”, “Prepared” or “Transitioning”) are determined as having a clear and measurable path to transition with the 1 to 3 categories determining the relative strength and success of that path. Climate categories 4 and 5 (“Unprepared” or “Laggards”) are not yet on an identifiable path to transition.

In addition, the Fund's bond investments are subject to the Investment Manager's additional ESG Risk criteria. The Investment Manager, through assessing the ESG evaluation undertaken by its credit research team, identify issuers using a proprietary ESG framework to construct a portfolio with issuers who have been identified as having the best ESG categories, with the lowest ESG risks - with ESG category 1 being the highest ESG category and 5 being the lowest. The Fund will invest at least 90% of its bond portfolio in those securities with ESG categories 1, 2, or 3, with up to 10% in securities identified as ESG category 4 or unrated securities.

The Fund will not invest in securities with ESG category 5. As an outcome of the integration of the climate related analysis and overarching ESG Risk criteria, the Fund aims to reduce its carbon footprint by 30% by the end of 2029 relative to the base level of an equivalent portfolio of securities as at 31 December 2024. Please see the Fund's Supplement for a full description of the Investment Manager's climate transition and ESG framework and criteria.

The Fund promotes E/S (i.e. Environmental and Social) characteristics within the meaning of Article 8 of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).

(Source: KIID, as at August 2025)

SDR Labelling:

Not eligible to use label (out of scope)