Sustainable, Responsible &/or ESG Policy:

Objective

To increase the value of its shares, over the long term, through growth in the value of its investments.

Portfolio securities

The fund is actively managed and invests mainly in a diversified portfolio of shares that have the potential for above average and sustainable rates of earnings growth. The companies may be anywhere in the world, including emerging markets.

Although the fund does not have sustainable investment as an objective, the promotion of environmental and social characteristics (“E & S”) is achieved through the fund's commitment to maintain at least 10% of the value of its portfolio invested in Sustainable Investments. The investment manager  implements the following investment strategies: exclusion screen, sustainable investment exposure and active ownership. Details of how E & S are promoted  are further explained in the fund's Sustainability annex to the prospectus

The fund may use derivatives for hedging and efficient portfolio management.

Investment process

The investment manager's approach is to:

• Identify “best ideas” by assessing companies in a global sector context, using a bottom-up approach to create a focused high-conviction global portfolio of around 60 to 80 companies.
• Utilise a proprietary global research platform using fundamental analysis to identify companies with improving fundamentals and growth prospects.
• Integrate macroeconomic and local market factors in stock selection decisions.
• Measure valuation appeal against the local market and broad sector opportunity set.
• Invest in a broad range of shares across all capitalisations, incorporating developed and emerging markets. 
• Assess environmental, social and governance ("ESG") factors with particular focus on those considered most likely to have a material impact on the performance of the holdings or potential holdings in the funds' portfolio. These ESG factors, which are incorporated into the investment process alongside financials, valuation, macro-economics and other factors, are components of the investment decision. Consequently, ESG factors are not the sole driver of an investment decision but are instead one of several important inputs considered during investment analysis.

SFDR classification Article 8.

Benchmark:

• MSCI All Country World Net Index. The primary benchmark has been selected because it is similar to the investment universe used by the investment manager and therefore acts as an appropriate comparator overall.
• MSCI All Country World Growth Index Net. The secondary benchmark has been selected to reflect the value style of the fund and investors may use it as additional information to compare the fund's performance.

Benchmark use

The fund's benchmark(s), is (are) used for performance comparison purposes only.

(Source: KIID, as at February 2025)

Resources, Affiliations & Corporate Strategies:

ESG Resources

TRPA’s strategies use ESG integration as part of the investment process. This means incorporating environmental, social and governance factors to maximize investment performance. Our philosophy is that ESG factors are a component of the investment decision—meaning that they are not the sole driver of an investment decision, nor are they considered separately from more traditional investment factors such as valuation, financials, industry trends, and macroeconomics.

The process of ESG integration takes place on two levels: first, with TRPA’s research analysts as they consider environmental, social, and governance factors as part of the overall security valuations and ratings process, and second, with TRPA’s portfolio managers as they balance ESG factor exposure at the portfolio level. Both the analysts and portfolio managers are able to leverage dedicated, in-house resources to assist them in analyzing ESG criteria.

TRPA’s specialist ESG teams provide investment research on ESG issues at the security level and on thematic topics. They have built tools to help proactively and systematically analyse the ESG factors that could impact our investments. One such tool is a proprietary scoring system called the TRPA Responsible Investing Indicator Model (RIIM) which forms the foundation of our ESG integration process. The RIIM framework provides two key benefits:

1. RIIM provides a uniform standard of due diligence on ESG factors across our investment platform; and
2. RIIM establishes a common language for our analysts, portfolio managers, and ESG specialists to discuss how an investment is performing on ESG and to compare securities within the investment universe. 

We have developed RIIM frameworks across asset classes, covering equities and corporate bonds, sovereign bonds, municipal bonds and securitized bonds. The RIIM frameworks are unique for each asset class as the level and type of ESG data available vary across asset classes. 

Our proprietary RIIM framework for analyzing the ESG profiles of our investments is populated by both quantitative ESG data sets as well as our own fundamental research. Quantitative ESG data sets help create a baseline from which to measure an individual security’s ESG performance and make our process more scalable, allowing us to compare a portfolio with its benchmark.

RIIM leverages preparedness and controversy-related data points specific to each sub-industry from an ESG dataset provided by Sustainalytics. These include:

• Policies, programs, standards
• Certification, memberships, select programs
• Signatories to principles e.g. United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).
• Controversies or incidents

RIIM sources company reported performance data sets from Bloomberg to provide a more substantive lens on a company’s ESG management. These include:

• ESG-related targets
• Company reported performance metrics

For those issuers not covered by RIIM, we use Auquan to screen for ESG controversies.

In addition to the data inputs that feed directly into RIIM, we also utilize third-party data from other vendors. MSCI ESG data is the primary input for managing our proprietary exclusion lists. MSCI Climate Lab Enterprise provides climate data research (climate scenario analysis and implied temperature rise tools). ISS is the main data provider for our corporate governance analysis. We also receive broker investment research on ESG topics as an input to our own custom proxy voting guidelines. Our impact strategies leverage data from third party provider Net Purpose to help measure and validate investee companies’ delivered outcomes and impact. 

As well as external data inputs, RIIM leverages internal databases developed by our ESG specialist teams for specific ESG factors. Examples of these factors include but are not limited to:

• Chemicals product sustainability
• Exposure to opioids
• Forest Stewardship Council certification
• Lobbying bad actors
• Net zero targets

These external and proprietary sources efficiently and consistently provide the data we need to build a preliminary ESG profile of a security and conduct our ESG screening and analysis, which are used in our analysts’ detailed fundamental research.

ESG Investment Professionals

At TRPA, our Responsible Investing (RI) and Governance teams help our analysts and portfolio managers identify, analyse and integrate the sustainable factors most likely to have a material impact on an investment’s performance. 

They are further supported by our Global Proxy Operations team focused on proxy voting execution and an ESG focused technology team, as well as dedicated sustainable investment specialist resources.

Governance: TRPA has had dedicated corporate governance resources since 2007. The team assesses governance issues among existing and potential investments and provides insights for analysts and portfolio managers. It assists with company engagement, facilitates proxy voting, and participates in leading governance initiatives in the asset management industry.

Responsible Investing: Our dedicated RI team conducts analysis on the environmental and social profiles of individual securities and portfolios. The team also assists with company engagement and supports our investment professionals by providing research on sustainability topics, as well as developing sustainable tools to assist them. Our RI resources have been in place since 2017.

Memberships and Associations

T. Rowe Price* is a signatory to or member of the following initiatives**:

*At least one T. Rowe Price entity is a member of the organizations listed.

**T. Rowe Price may be a member of other initiatives, standards, principles, working groups, or other organizations not listed above. Additionally, individual T. Rowe Price associates may be members of working groups not listed above.

***T. Rowe Price became a member of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Alliance in 2021. The SASB Alliance later merged into the IFRS Sustainability Alliance

SDR Labelling:

Not eligible to use label