allocating
investment opportunities among portfolios that are designed to provide a fair
and equitable allocation. With respect to conflicts
arising from personal investments, all employees, including portfolio managers,
must comply with personal trading
controls established by each of the Adviser's and Trust's Code of
Ethics.
SSGA's culture is
complemented and reinforced by a total rewards strategy that is based on a pay
for performance philosophy which
seeks to offer a competitive pay mix of base salary, benefits, cash incentives
and deferred compensation.
Salary is based on a
number of factors, including external benchmarking data and market trends, and
performance both at the business and
individual level. SSGA's Global Human Resources department regularly
participates in compensation surveys in order to
provide SSGA with market-based compensation information that helps support
individual pay decisions.
Additionally,
subject to State Street and SSGA business results, an incentive pool is
allocated to SSGA to reward its employees. The size
of the incentive pool for most business units is based on the firm's overall
profitability and other factors, including
performance against risk-related goals. For most SSGA investment teams, SSGA
recognizes and rewards performance
by linking annual incentive decisions for investment teams to the firm's or
business unit's profitability and business unit
investment performance over a multi-year period.
Incentive pool
funding for most active investment teams is driven in part by the post-tax
investment performance of fund(s) managed by the team
versus the return levels of the benchmark index(es) of the fund(s) on a one-,
three- and, in some cases, five-year
basis. For most active investment teams, a material portion of incentive
compensation for senior staff is deferred over a
four-year period into the SSGA Long-Term Incentive (“SSGA LTI”) program. For these
teams, The SSGA LTI program indexes
the performance of these deferred awards against the post-tax investment
performance of fund(s) managed by the team.
This is intended to align our investment team's compensation with client
interests, both through annual incentive
compensation awards and through the long-term value of deferred awards in the
SSGA LTI program.
For the index equity
investment team, incentive pool funding is driven in part by the post-tax 1 and
3-year tracking error of the funds managed by
the team against the benchmark indexes of the funds.
The discretionary
allocation of the incentive pool to the business units within SSGA is influenced
by market-based compensation data,
as well as the overall performance of each business unit. Individual
compensation decisions are made by the
employee's manager, in conjunction with the senior management of the employee's
business unit. These decisions are based
on the overall performance of the employee and, as mentioned above, on the
performance of the firm and business unit.
Depending on the job level, a portion of the annual incentive may be awarded in
deferred compensation, which
may include cash and/or Deferred Stock Awards (State Street stock), which
typically vest over a four-year period.
This helps to retain staff and further aligns SSGA employees' interests with
SSGA clients' and shareholders'
long-term interests.
SSGA recognizes and
rewards outstanding performance by:
•Promoting
employee ownership to connect employees directly to the company's
success.
•Using
rewards to reinforce mission, vision, values and business strategy.
•Seeking
to recognize and preserve the firm's unique culture and team
orientation.
•Providing
all employees the opportunity to share in the success of SSGA.
THE
ADMINISTRATOR, SUB-ADMINISTRATOR, CUSTODIAN AND TRANSFER AGENT
Administrator: SSGA FM serves as
the administrator to each series of the Trust, pursuant to an Administration
Agreement dated June 1, 2015
(the “SSGA Administration
Agreement”). Pursuant to the
SSGA Administration Agreement, SSGA FM is obligated to
continuously provide business management services to the Trust and its series
and will generally, subject to the general
oversight of the Trustees and except as otherwise provided in the SSGA
Administration Agreement, manage all of the business
and affairs of the Trust.
Sub-Administrator,
Custodian and Transfer Agent: State Street serves
as the sub-administrator to each series of the Trust, pursuant to a
Sub-Administration Agreement dated June 1, 2015 (the “Sub-Administration
Agreement”). Under the
Sub-Administration Agreement, State
Street is obligated to provide certain sub-administrative services to the Trust
and its series. State Street
is a wholly-owned subsidiary of State Street Corporation, a publicly held
financial holding company, and is affiliated
with the Adviser. State Street's mailing address is State Street Financial
Center, One Lincoln Street, Boston,
Massachusetts 02111.
