Semi-Annual Report
iMGP Equity Fund
iMGP International Fund
iMGP Oldfield International Value Fund
iMGP SBH Focused Small Value Fund
iMGP Alternative Strategies Fund
iMGP High Income Alternatives Fund
iMGP Dolan McEniry Corporate Bond Fund
iMGP DBi Managed Futures Strategy ETF
iMGP DBi Hedge Strategy ETF
iMGP RBA Responsible Global Allocation ETF
June 30, 2022
ii | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
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iMGP Equity Fund |
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iMGP International Fund |
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iMGP Oldfield International Value Fund |
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iMGP SBH Focused Small Value Fund |
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iMGP Alternative Strategies Fund |
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iMGP High Income Alternatives Fund |
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92 | ||
93 | ||
iMGP Dolan McEniry Corporate Bond Fund |
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109 | ||
Dolan McEniry Corporate Bond Fund Schedule of Investments |
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iMGP DBi Managed Futures Strategy ETF |
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114 | ||
DBi Managed Futures Strategy ETF Consolidated Schedule of Investments |
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iMGP DBi Hedge Strategy ETF |
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iMGP RBA Responsible Global Allocation ETF |
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RBA Responsible Global Allocation ETF Schedule of Investments |
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Financial Highlights |
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This report is intended for shareholders of the funds and may not be used as sales literature unless preceded or accompanied by a current prospectus for the iMGP Funds. Statements and other information in this report are dated and are subject to change.
iM Global Partner Fund Management, LLC has ultimate responsibility for the funds’ performance due to its responsibility to oversee its investment managers and recommend their hiring, termination and replacement.
Table of Contents | 1 |
iM Global Partner Fund Management
We are deeply committed to making each iMGP Fund a highly satisfying long-term investment for shareholders. In following through on this commitment we are guided by our core values, which influence four specific areas of service:
First, we are committed to the IMGP concept.
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We will only hire managers who we strongly believe will deliver exceptional long-term returns relative to their benchmarks. We base this belief on extremely thorough due diligence research. This not only requires us to assess their stock-picking skills, but also to evaluate their ability to add incremental performance by investing in a concentrated portfolio of their highest conviction ideas. |
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We will monitor each of the managers so that we can maintain our confidence in their ability to deliver the long-term performance we expect. In addition, our monitoring will seek to assess whether they are staying true to their IMGP Funds mandate. Consistent with this mandate, we focus on long-term performance evaluation so that the IMGP managers will not be distracted by short-term performance pressure. |
Second, we will do all we can to ensure that the framework within which our stock pickers do their work further increases the odds of success.
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Investments from new shareholders in each fund are expected to be limited so that each fund’s asset base remains small enough to retain flexibility to add value. |
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The framework also includes either a single-manager or a multi-manager structure; the former allowing each fund an individual, highly disciplined investment process, and the latter making it possible for each manager to invest, when appropriate, in an opportunistic manner knowing that the potential volatility within his or her portfolio will be diluted at the fund level by the performance of the other managers. In this way, the multi-manager structure seeks to provide fund-level diversification. |
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We will work hard to discourage short-term speculators so that cash flows into the funds are not volatile. Lower volatility helps prevent our managers from being forced to sell stocks at inopportune times or to hold excessive cash for non-investment purposes. |
Third, is our commitment to do all we can from an operational standpoint to maximize shareholder returns.
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We will remain attentive to fund overhead, and whenever we achieve savings we will pass them through to shareholders. For example, we have had several manager changes that resulted in lower sub-advisory fees to our funds. In every case we have passed through the full savings to shareholders in the form of fee waivers. |
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We will provide investors with a low minimum, no-load, no 12b-1 Institutional share class for all iMGP Funds, and a low minimum, no-load Investor share class for the Alternative Strategies and Dolan McEniry Corporate Bond Fund. |
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We also will work closely with our managers to make sure they are aware of tax-loss selling opportunities (only to be taken if there are equally attractive stocks to swap into). We account for partial sales on a specific tax lot basis so that shareholders will benefit from the most favorable tax treatment. The goal is not to favor taxable shareholders over tax-exempt shareholders but to make sure that the managers are taking advantage of tax savings opportunities when doing so is not expected to reduce pre-tax returns. |
Fourth, is our commitment to communicate honestly about all relevant developments and expectations.
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We will continue to do this by providing thorough and educational shareholder reports. |
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We will continue to provide what we believe are realistic assessments of the investment environment. |
Our commitment to iMGP Funds is also evidenced by our own investment. Our retired founders and current employees have, collectively, substantial investments in the funds, as does our company retirement plan. In addition, we use the funds extensively in the client accounts of our investment advisor practice (through our affiliate Litman Gregory Wealth Management, LLC). We have no financial incentive to do so because the fees we receive from iMGPFunds held in client accounts are fully offset against the advisory fees paid by our clients. In fact, we have a disincentive to use the funds in our client accounts because each iMGP Fund is capacity constrained (they may be closed as mentioned above), and by using them in client accounts we are using up capacity for which we may not be paid. But we believe these funds offer value that we can’t get elsewhere and this is why we enthusiastically invest in them ourselves and on behalf of clients.
While we believe highly in the ability of the Funds’ sub-advisors, our commitments are not intended as guarantees of future results.
While the funds are no-load, there are management fees and operating expenses that do apply, as well as a 12b-1 fee that applies to Investor class shares. Please refer to the prospectus for further details.
Diversification does not assure a profit or protect against loss in a declining market.
Must be preceded or accompanied by a prospectus.
2 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
Must be preceded or accompanied by a prospectus.
Effective December 16, 2021 the name of the PartnerSelect Funds was changed to iMGP Funds.
Effective October 1, 2021 the name of the Advisor to the Funds was changed from Litman Gregory Fund Advisors LLC to iM Global Partner Fund Management LLC.
On September 20, 2021 the iM Dolan McEniry Corporate Bond Fund, iM DBI Managed Future Strategy ETF and iM DBI Hedge Strategy EFT were acquired by the Litman Gregory Funds Trust by merger. Performance reported for each of these funds for periods prior to the merger date represents the performance of the Predecessor Funds.
Each of the funds may invest in foreign securities. Investing in foreign securities exposes investors to economic, political, and market risks and fluctuations in foreign currencies. Each of the funds may invest in the securities of small companies. Small-company investing subjects investors to additional risks, including security price volatility and less liquidity than investing in larger companies. Debt obligations of distressed companies typically are unrated, lower rated, in default or close to default and may become worthless. The International Fund will invest in emerging markets. Investments in emerging market countries involve additional risks such as government dependence on a few industries or resources, government-imposed taxes on foreign investment or limits on the removal of capital from a country, unstable government, and volatile markets. Investments in debt securities typically decrease when interest rates rise. This risk is usually greater for longer-term debt securities. Investments in mortgage-backed securities include additional risks that investor should be aware of including credit risk, prepayment risk, possible illiquidity, and default, as well as increased susceptibility to adverse economic developments. Investments in lower-rated and non-rated securities present a greater risk of loss to principal and interest than higher-rated securities. The funds may invest in master limited partnership units. Investing in MLP units may expose investors to additional liability and tax risks. Derivatives may involve certain costs and risks such as liquidity, interest rate, market, credit, management, and the risk that a position could not be closed when most advantageous. Investing in derivatives could lose more than the amount invested. The funds may make short sales of securities, which involves the risk that losses may exceed the original amount invested.
A commission may apply when buying or selling an ETF.
© 2021 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The information contained herein: (1) is proprietary to Morningstar; (2) may not be copied or distributed; and (3) is not warranted to be accurate, complete or timely. Neither Morningstar nor its content providers are responsible for any damages or losses arising from any use of this information. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
The iMGP International Fund uses the iShares MSCI AWCI ex U.S. ETF for weightings comparisons because of its readily available information. We believe this particular ETF is the most relevant to our fund and is widely recognized by investors. The iShares MSCI ACWI ex U.S. ETF seeks to track the investment results of an index composed of large- and mid-capitalization non-U.S. equities Its expenses are 0.34% gross and 0.32% net. It may invest up to an aggregate amount of 15% of its assets in illiquid investments. An investment in the ETF is not a bank deposit and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other government agency, BFA or any of its affiliates. As with any investment, you could lose all or part of your investment in the ETF and the ETF’s performance could trail that of other investments. The ETF intends to make distributions that may be taxable to you as ordinary income or capital gains, unless you are investing through a tax-deferred arrangement such as a 401(k) plan or an IRA, in which case, your distributions generally will be taxed when withdrawn.
Merger arbitrage investments risk loss if a proposed reorganization in which the fund invests is renegotiated or terminated.
Investments in absolute return strategies are not untended to outperform stocks and bonds during strong market rallies.
Multi-investment management styles may lead to higher transaction expenses compared to single investment management styles. Outcomes depend on the skill of the sub-advisors and advisor and the allocation of assets amongst them.
Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Mutual fund investing involves risk; loss of principal is possible.
Performance discussion for the Alternative Strategies and Dolan McEniry Corporate Bond Funds is specifically related to the Institutional share class.
Some of the comments are based on current management expectation and are considered “forward-looking statements”. Actual future results, however, may prove to be different from our expectations. You can identify forward-looking statement by words such as “estimate”, “may”, “expect”, “should”, “could”, “believe”, “plan”, and similar terms. We cannot promise future returns and our opinions are a reflection of our best judgment at the time this report is compiled.
Opinions expressed are subject to change, are not guaranteed and should not be considered recommendations to buy or sell any security.
Fund Summary | 3 |
See pages 10, 18, 23, and 29 for each equity fund’s top contributors. See pages 14, 22, 26, and 31 for each equity fund’s portfolio composition. See pages 34 for the Alternative Strategies Fund’s individual strategy portfolio allocations. See pages 91 for the High Income Alternative Fund’s individual strategy portfolio allocations. Fund holdings and/or sector allocations are subject to change at any time and are not recommendations to buy or sell any security.
Diversification does not assure a profit or protect against a loss in a declining market.
Leverage may cause the effect of an increase or decrease in the value of the portfolio securities to be magnified and the fund to be more volatile than if leverage was not used.
References to other mutual funds should not be interpreted as an offer of these securities.
iM Global Partner Fund Management LLC has ultimate responsibility for the performance of the iMGPFunds due to its responsibility to oversee the investment managers and recommend their hiring, termination and replacement.
Any tax or legal information provided is merely a summary of our understanding and interpretation of some of the current income tax regulations and it is not exhaustive. Investors must consult their tax advisor or legal counsel for advice and information concerning their particular situation. Neither the Funds nor any of their representatives may give legal or tax advice.
Please see page 187 for index definitions. You cannot invest directly in an index.
Please see page 190 for industry definitions.
4 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
iMGP Funds Performance as of June 30, 2022 |
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Average Annual Total Returns | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Year to Date Return |
One-Year | Three-Year | Five-Year | Ten-Year | Since Inception |
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iMGP Equity Fund (Inception 12/31/1996) |
-27.13% | -26.41% | 3.17% | 5.76% | 9.91% | 7.58% | ||||||||||||||||||
Russell 3000 Index |
-21.10% | -13.87% | 9.77% | 10.60% | 12.57% | 8.59% | ||||||||||||||||||
Morningstar US Large Blend Category |
-19.26% | -11.87% | 8.42% | 9.21% | 10.99% | 7.13% | ||||||||||||||||||
Gross Expenses 1.29%, Net Expenses 1.16% |
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iMGP International Fund (Inception 12/1/1997) |
-22.46% | -20.26% | 0.18% | 0.24% | 3.88% | 5.93% | ||||||||||||||||||
MSCI EAFE Index NET |
-19.57% | -17.77% | 1.07% | 2.20% | 5.40% | 4.35% | ||||||||||||||||||
Morningstar Foreign Large Blend Category |
-19.25% | -18.72% | 1.14% | 1.89% | 4.82% | 3.63% | ||||||||||||||||||
Gross Expenses 1.38%, Net Expenses 1.15% |
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iMGP Alternative Strategies Fund Instl (Inception 9/30/2011) |
-8.51% | -8.78% | 1.16% | 1.82% | 3.27% | 3.72% | ||||||||||||||||||
iMGP Alternative Strategies Fund Inv |
-8.62% | -9.09% | 0.90% | 1.56% | 3.02% | 3.47% | ||||||||||||||||||
ICE BofA US 3-Month Treasury Bill |
0.14% | 0.17% | 0.63% | 1.11% | 0.64% | 0.60% | ||||||||||||||||||
Bloomberg Aggregate Bond Index |
-10.35% | -10.29% | -0.93% | 0.88% | 1.54% | 1.76% | ||||||||||||||||||
Morningstar Multistrategy Category |
-4.18% | -3.08% | 1.90% | 1.99% | 2.57% | 2.71% | ||||||||||||||||||
Inst Class Gross Expenses 1.72%, Net Expenses 1.44%, Adjusted Expeneses 1.30% |
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iMGP High Income Alternatives Fund (inception 9/28/2018) |
-7.85% | -6.02% | 2.02% | 2.27% | ||||||||||||||||||||
Bloomberg Aggregate Bond Index |
-10.35% | -10.29% | -0.93% | 1.27% | ||||||||||||||||||||
ICE BofAML U.S. High Yield TR USD Index |
-14.04% | -12.66% | -0.04% | 1.29% | ||||||||||||||||||||
Morningstar US Fund Nontraditional Bond Category |
-6.68% | -6.96% | -0.07% | 0.62% | ||||||||||||||||||||
Gross Expenses 1.44%, Net Expenses 0.98% |
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iMGP SBH Focused Small Value Fund (Inception 7/31/2020) |
-19.78% | -17.51% | 10.92% | |||||||||||||||||||||
Russell 2000 Value |
-17.31% | -16.28% | 20.17% | |||||||||||||||||||||
Morningstar Small Value Category |
-15.10% | -12.02% | 22.25% | |||||||||||||||||||||
Gross Expenses 1.48%, Net Expenses 1.15% |
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iMGP Oldfield Internatl Value Fund (Inception 11/30/2020) |
-16.72% | -18.95% | -0.04% | |||||||||||||||||||||
MSCI EAFE Value NR USD |
-12.12% | -11.95% | 1.77% | |||||||||||||||||||||
Morningstar Fund Foreign Large Value |
-13.30% | -13.12% | 1.96% | |||||||||||||||||||||
Gross Expenses 1.52%, Net Expenses 0.94% |
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iMGP DBi Managed Futures Strategy ETF (NAV) (Inception 5/7/2019) |
26.24% | 25.04% | 15.03% | 15.25% | ||||||||||||||||||||
iMGP DBi Managed Futures Strategy ETF (Price) |
25.60% | 25.49% | 15.37% | 15.58% | ||||||||||||||||||||
SG CTA |
21.14% | 20.74% | 10.40% | 10.34% | ||||||||||||||||||||
Morningstar US Fund Systematic Trend |
15.94% | 14.34% | 7.73% | 7.78% | ||||||||||||||||||||
Gross Expenses 0.95%, Adjusted Expenses 0.85% |
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iMGP DBi Hedge Strategy ETF (NAV) (inception 12/17/2019) |
-6.02% | -6.42% | 8.16% | |||||||||||||||||||||
iMGP DBi Hedge Strategy ETF (Price) |
-6.07% | -6.42% | 8.08% | |||||||||||||||||||||
Morningstar US Fund Long-Short Equity Category |
-9.65% | -6.58% | 2.90% | |||||||||||||||||||||
Gross Expenses 0.85% |
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iMGP Dolan McEniry Corporate Bond Instl (inception 9/28/2018) |
-9.06% | -9.75% | -0.59% | 1.31% | ||||||||||||||||||||
iMGP Dolan McEniry Corporate Bond Inv (inception 5/17/2019) |
-9.14% | -9.92% | -0.91% | -0.31% | ||||||||||||||||||||
Bloomberg US Intermediate Credit Index |
-8.52% | -8.96% | -0.14% | 1.82% | ||||||||||||||||||||
Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond TR USD |
-10.35% | -10.29% | -0.93% | 1.27% | ||||||||||||||||||||
US Fund Corporate Bond Category |
-13.86% | -13.92% | -1.04% | 1.35% | ||||||||||||||||||||
Inst Class Gross Expenses 096%, Net Expenses 0.70% |
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iMGP RBA Responsible Global Allocation ETF (NAV) Inception 2.1.2022) |
-11.61% | -11.61% | ||||||||||||||||||||||
iMGP RBA Responsible Global Allocation ETF (Price) |
-11.72% | -11.72% | ||||||||||||||||||||||
65/35 Blend of MSCI ACWI Index & Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index |
-13.35% | -13.35% | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Morningstar US Fund World Allocation Category |
-11.32% | -11.32% | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Gross Expenses 0.75%, Net Expenses 0.69% |
Past performance does not guarantee future results. Index performance is not illustrative of fund performance. An investment cannot be made directly in an index. The investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that an investor’s shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost. Current performance of the fund may be lower or higher than the performance quoted. To obtain the performance of the funds as of the most recently completed calendar month, please visit www.imgpfunds.com. Investment performance reflects fee waivers in effect. In the absence of such waivers, total return would be reduced.
The Equity, International and Alternative Strategies Funds all have contractual fee waivers in effect through April 30, 2023. The Advisor has agreed to limit the expenses of the High Income Alternatives, SBH Focused Small Value, Oldfield International Value and Dolan McEniry Corporate Bond Funds through April 30, 2023. See the Prospectus for more information.
Performance does not reflect taxes a shareholder might incur on the sale of shares. Performance does not reflect fees or commissions a shareholder may pay on the purchase or sale of shares.
A commission may apply when buying or selling shares of an ETF.
MSCI index returns source: MSCI. Neither MSCI nor any other party involved in or related to compiling, computing, or creating the MSCI data makes any express or implied warranties or representations with respect to such data (or the results to be obtained by the use thereof), and all such parties hereby expressly disclaim all warranties of originality, accuracy, completeness, merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose with respect to any of such data. Without limiting any of the foregoing, in no event shall MSCI, any of its affiliates, or any third party involved in or related to compiling, computing, or creating the data have any liability for any direct, indirect, special, punitive, consequential, or any other damages (including lost profits) even if notified of the possibility of such damages. No further distribution or dissemination of the MSCI data is permitted without MSCI’s express written consent. Source note: Returns prior to 1999 are the MSCI ACWI ex-US GR index. Returns from 1999 onwards are MSCI ACWI ex-US NR index.
Fund Summary | 5 |
It’s been a rough year, with equity markets down more than 20% and “low-risk” bond markets registering low double-digit losses. The S&P 500 dropped 16.1% for the second quarter and is down 20% for the year, after being down as much as 24% through mid-June. Foreign stocks fared slightly better with Developed international markets (MSCI EAFE Index) down 14.5% for the quarter and 19.6% YTD. Emerging Market stocks (MSCI Emerging Markets Index) held up a bit better, dropping 11.4% for the quarter, and down 17.6% YTD.
Core investment-grade bonds were pummeled again in the second quarter, with the benchmark Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index (the “Agg”) dropping 4.7%. This puts the “safe-haven” Agg down an incredible 10.3% for the year to date — its worst first-half ever. In other segments of the fixed-income market, high-yield bonds (ICE BofA Merrill Lynch U.S. High Yield Cash Pay Index) fell 9.9% and floating rate loans (S&P/LSTA Leveraged Loan index) dropped 4.5% for the quarter. For the year to date through the end of June, these indexes are down 14.0% and 4.6%, respectively.
As we have long pointed out, core bonds are not low-risk or defensive assets in an inflationary (rising interest rate) environment. Taken together with the equity bear market, this is by far the worst first-half performance for a traditional “60/40” balanced portfolio (60% S&P 500/40% Aggregate Bond Index) since at least 1950, down 16.1%. The previous worst first half was in 1962, down 12%.
Portfolio diversification into “non-traditional” asset classes, non-core and flexible fixed-income strategies, and alternative strategies can be particularly valuable in an inflationary or stagflationary environment. We saw this in the first half of the year. Trend-following managed futures strategies led the way posting 20%-plus returns, benefiting from short positions in bond and stock markets, and long exposures to commodities and the US dollar. It’s worth noting the benchmark SG Trend Index has now outperformed both global stocks (MSCI ACWI) and core bonds (the Agg) by wide margins over the past three and five years through the end of June.
Given this macro backdrop, the iMGP Funds family offers several strong options that we believe can improve the risk-adjusted performance of a traditional stock/bond balanced portfolio: namely, our DBi Managed Futures Strategy ETF, DBi Hedge Strategy ETF, Alternative Strategies Fund, High Income Alternatives Fund, RBA Responsible Global Allocation ETF and Dolan McEniry Corporate Bond Fund.
For more risk-tolerant investors, our high-conviction, concentrated equity funds seek to generate long-term capital growth exceeding passive indexes. They can serve as core equity holdings, or as satellite positions around core equity-market index allocations.
We believe the iMGP Funds can fill a valuable role within diversified investment portfolios. Each Fund is sub-advised by highly disciplined, deeply experienced, and skilled investors who we believe can outperform their respective benchmarks and peer groups over full market cycles.
We strongly encourage shareholders to read the enclosed individual fund and ETF semi-annual reports for portfolio manager commentary and performance details.
As always, we thank you for your continued trust and confidence. Our commitment and confidence are reflected in the collective personal investments in the funds by iMGP management, employees, and the Funds’ trustees and portfolio managers of over $15 million, as of June 30, 2022.
6 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
Sincerely,
Jeremy DeGroot, President and Portfolio Manager
Jack Chee, Portfolio Manager
Jason Steuerwalt, Portfolio Manager
Kiko Vallarta, Portfolio Manager
Fund Summary | 7 |
The iMGP Equity Fund lost 27.13% in the first half of 2022, lagging the 21.1% decline for the fund’s Russell 3000 Index benchmark and the 19.26% loss for the Morningstar Large Blend category. Since the fund’s inception on December 31, 1996, the fund’s 7.58% annualized return is slightly behind the benchmark return of 8.59% but ahead of its peer group’s 7.13% return.
Performance as of 6/30/2022 |
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Average Annual Total Returns | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Year to Date Return |
One- Year |
Three- Year |
Five- Year |
Ten- Year |
Since Inception (12/31/1996) |
|||||||||||||||||||
iMGP Equity Fund |
-27.13% | -26.41% | 3.17% | 5.76% | 9.91% | 7.58% | ||||||||||||||||||
Russell 3000 Index |
-21.10% | -13.87% | 9.77% | 10.60% | 12.57% | 8.59% | ||||||||||||||||||
S&P 500 Index |
-19.96% | -10.62% | 10.60% | 11.31% | 12.96% | 8.61% | ||||||||||||||||||
Morningstar Large Blend Category |
-19.26% | -11.87% | 8.42% | 9.21% | 10.99% | 7.13% | ||||||||||||||||||
Performance quoted represents past performance and does not guarantee future results. The investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that an investor’s shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost. Current performance of the funds may be lower or higher than the performance quoted. To obtain standardized performance of the funds, and performance as of the most recently completed calendar month, please visit www.imgpfunds.com. The Advisor has contractually agreed to waive fees or limit the expenses of the fund through April 30, 2023. |
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Performance of Managers
Of the fund’s six sub-advisors, only one (Nuance Investments) outperformed their respective benchmark in the first half of 2022. Of the remaining managers, one manager (Fiduciary Management) performed in line, while the others underperformed. The fund’s sole growth manager, Sands Capital, suffered one of their worst absolute and relative performances in the six-month period, losing 50.11% and lagging the Russell 1000 Growth benchmark by 22.04% in the period. (Returns are net of sub-advisor management fees.)
Key Performance Drivers
In the first half of 2022, both sector allocation and stock selection had negative impacts on performance. It is important to understand that the portfolio is built stock by stock and that sector weightings are a residual of the bottom-up, fundamental stock-picking process employed by each sub-advisor. That said, we do report on the short-term relative performance of both sector weights and stock selection to help shareholders understand the drivers of recent performance. It is also important to remember that the performance of a stock over a relatively short period tells us nothing about whether it will be a successful position; that is only known at the point when the stock is sold.
At the overall sector level, Consumer Discretionary, Industrials, and Real Estate were the three contributors. The portfolio’s consumer discretionary exposure benefitted from better relative stock performance, but this was partially offset by an overweight (17.08% vs. 11.45%) to an underperforming sector relative to the benchmark. Within the sector, Amazon.com was a meaningful detractor (down 36.3%) in the period. The stock is owned by both Sands Capital and Davis Advisors. Davis says the stock’s performance reflects the near-term uncertainty in e-commerce growth following accelerated adoption of e-commerce during the pandemic. In addition, excess capacity along with wage and fuel inflation are negatively impacting Amazon’s current e-commerce margins, leading some investors to question whether the e-commerce business is structurally less profitable than previously thought. While Amazon’s cloud business continues to perform very well on both the top and bottom-lines, growth could slow over the next few quarters if concerns about the economy materialize.
Sectors that detracted most from performance in the period were communication services, health care, and energy. The negative impact from communication services was primarily due to stock selection. Sea Limited was a leading detractor, falling 70.11%. Sea is an internet business in Southeast Asia that operates leading platforms for video games (Garena), ecommerce (Shopee), and digital financial services (SeaMonkey). Sands Capital says Sea’s core geographic market benefits from several secular trends—including above-average economic growth, young demographics, and low digital adoption levels—that the team believes will underpin strong growth for its core businesses. Sands says Sea’s shares have contended with several headwinds over the past several quarters, including the sell-off in high-growth, high-valuation stocks and company-specific headwinds (e.g., Tencent’s stock sale and voting restructuring, India’s gaming ban and ecommerce exit, and slowing gaming growth). The market’s elevated focus on near-term profitability has also weighed on Sea, but the company’s first-quarter results strengthened Sands’ conviction in the profit potential of what they view as its biggest growth driver: Shopee, its ecommerce segment.
Shopee grew gross merchandise volume and revenue by 39% and 64%year-over-year, respectively, well ahead of consensus expectations. Loss per order improved in both Southeast Asia & Taiwan, and the company committed to the segment breaking even in 2023. Loss per order also improved in Brazil. Shopee remains the crux of the investment case. Sands believes that Shopee can ultimately account for nearly a fifth of total retail sales in Taiwan and Southeast Asia, with profitability driven by take-rate expansion and cost dilution.
8 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
Outside of ecommerce, Sea’s digital financial services business grew revenue 360% year-over-year and losses narrowed to $125 million from $150 million in the prior quarter. Gaming, which Sands doesn’t view as a core growth driver but still attracts investor focus due to its historical importance to the overall business, met expectations. Today, Sands views Sea’s long-term risk/reward profile as among the most attractive in their portfolio. They continue to view the company as the best-positioned business to capture the growth opportunity in Southeast Asia over the next decade as it caters to the population’s underserved retail, financial services, and digital entertainment needs.
Another detractor in communication services was Meta Platforms, which was owned by two managers, Bill Nygren of Harris Associates and Fiduciary Management. FMI’s view is that Meta is the #1 social media company globally, with incredible scale (2.7bn users), network effects, and best-in-class advertising ROI. The company’s ability to evolve its engagement models in a shifting social media landscape highlights its durability. As a result of its leading reach and high engagement, the company has built a dominant position in the secularly growing digital advertising market. There’s opportunity to improve monetization on multiple fronts including the messaging platforms and outside the United States. Meta’s e-commerce and augmented reality/virtual reality efforts also provide optionality. Pricing headwinds from Apple’s iOS changes, a shift of engagement towards Reels which monetizes at a lower rate than Feed and Stories, competition (TikTok), investment spend in the Metaverse, and recession fears have weighed on the stock. The stock has a great balance sheet, better than average long-term growth prospects, and trades at a discount to the market (~12x depressed earnings, before accounting for $44bn of net cash). FMI wants to give management some time to see how they navigate the current fundamental challenges before taking any further action.
While energy exposure was an overall detractor, EOG Resources, owned by Bill Nygren of Harris Associates was a top contributor in the period, gaining 28.83%. In the team’s view, EOG Resources is one of the best positioned U.S. energy companies as its focus on capital productivity made it a true low-cost producer. At a broad level, Nygren believes EOG Resources is a rare exploration and production company that generates unusually high returns on its acreage position while sustaining those returns by reloading the inventory base with additional unusually high-return acres. In his estimation, EOG Resource’s new CEO Ezra Yacob is off to a favorable start, adding on to a management team that strives to optimize operations for value creation and capitalize on positive developments in the external environment.
Specific to the stock’s recent performance, EOG Resources’ share price benefitted from the surge in energy prices in the first quarter due to the crisis in Ukraine. In addition, the company released its fourth-quarter earnings report revealing a 100 basis point increase in oil production year-over-year with capital expenditures flat sequentially and below consensus estimates. Guidance for 2022 remained in-line with estimates, and management plans to increase oil production by 4% year-over-year due to their belief that drilling is the best use of capital with 20 years of premium inventory. Management also believes the company will be able to offset inflation fully with drilling efficiencies. A $1 per share special dividend was awarded to shareholders for the second straight quarter while maintaining the regular $0.75 per share dividend. Despite its strong balance sheet relative to peers, management also said the company intends to build cash in 2022. Later, EOG Resources delivered good first-quarter earnings results, as production grew 2% quarter-over-quarter and finished above consensus expectations. Importantly, Nygren and his team find that the company’s absolute results are solid, and appreciated management’s commitment to returning 60% of its free cash flow to shareholders. They met with EOG’s new CEO Ezra Yacob in the second quarter, who reiterated the company’s goal to reduce finding and development costs every year and organically replenish drilling inventory. EOG also remains ready and willing to buy back stock in a downturn opportunistically.
Within industrials, CK Hutchison Holdings was leading performance contributor in the period. The FMI team says the company is a blue-chip holding conglomerate that owns relatively defensive, quality businesses (telecom, infrastructure, retail, etc.). The company has taken steps to create value over the past couple years (sale-and-leaseback of European tower assets, deconsolidation of Husky Energy, etc.), yet the stock price has barely budged. Despite a strong balance sheet, based on FMI’s estimates the stock trades at around a 50% discount to net asset value. Based on 2022 estimated earnings, the stock trades, at only ~5 times earnings and pays a healthy dividend (5% yield). FMI believes the current stock price undervalues the business. However, sentiment has been weak as the company has been less aggressive with shareholder returns (buying back stock, increasing the dividend) than investors had expected following the tower sale. FMI had written a letter to management and the board to encourage additional activity on this front, but was disappointed with their subsequent conversation with management, and have concerns they may pursue M&A. FMI sold their position in April, and rolled the proceeds into Sodexo, an investment where they have higher conviction: a simple, defensive compounder, which is cheap and out of favor, but one where they have greater confidence in management creating shareholder value.
Fund Summary | 9 |
Top Contributors for the Six Months Ended June 30, 2022 | ||||||||||||||||||
Holding | Weight % | Return % | Contribution % | Benchmark Weight % |
Sector | |||||||||||||
EOG Resources Inc |
1.25 | 28.83 | 0.31 | 0.16 | Endergy | |||||||||||||
CalMaine Foods |
0.51 | 33.58 | 0.20 | — | Consumer Staples | |||||||||||||
Cigna Corp |
1.14 | 15.81 | 0.14 | 0.19 | HealthCare | |||||||||||||
CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd |
0.64 | 11.71 | 0.12 | — | Industrials | |||||||||||||
Reinsurance Group of America |
1.24 | 8.48 | 0.10 | 0.02 | Financials | |||||||||||||
The Travelers Companies Inc |
0.62 | 9.26 | 0.10 | 0.10 | Financials | |||||||||||||
Dollar General Corp |
1.76 | 4.51 | 0.07 | 0.12 | Consumer Discretionary | |||||||||||||
American International Group Inc |
0.18 | 7.26 | 0.07 | 0.11 | Financials | |||||||||||||
Equity Commonwealth REIT |
1.00 | 6.29 | 0.06 | — | Real Estate | |||||||||||||
Clorox Co |
0.34 | 11.34 | 0.05 | 0.04 | Consumer Staples |
Top Detractors for the Six Months Ended June 30, 2022 | ||||||||||||||||||
Holding | Weight % | Return % | Contribution % | Benchmark Weight % |
Sector | |||||||||||||
Netflix Inc |
1.82 | (70.97 | ) | (1.99 | ) | 0.32 | Communication Services | |||||||||||
Sea Ltd ADR |
1.20 | (70.11 | ) | (1.42 | ) | — | Communication Services | |||||||||||
Dexcom Inc |
1.24 | (86.12 | ) | (1.29 | ) | 0.09 | HealthCare | |||||||||||
Amazon.com Inc |
3.36 | (36.29 | ) | (1.29 | ) | 2.84 | Consumer Discretionary | |||||||||||
Meta Platforms Inc Class A |
1.96 | (52.06 | ) | (1.14 | ) | 1.21 | Communication Services | |||||||||||
Alphabet Inc Class A |
4.62 | (24.78 | ) | (1.11 | ) | 1.79 | Communication Services | |||||||||||
Block Inc Class A |
1.13 | (61.95 | ) | (0.97 | ) | 0.12 | Information Technology | |||||||||||
GoHealth Inc Ordinary Shares - Class A |
0.49 | (84.22 | ) | (0.96 | ) | — | HealthCare | |||||||||||
Shopify Inc |
0.64 | (77.32 | ) | (0.92 | ) | — | Information Technology | |||||||||||
Capital One Financial Corp |
3.73 | (27.54 | ) | (0.89 | ) | 0.13 | Financials | |||||||||||
General Motors Co |
1.65 | (45.83 | ) | (0.88 | ) | 0.14 | Consumer Discretionary |
Portfolio Mix
The Equity Fund portfolio is the result of six bottom-up stock pickers with diverse investment approaches building concentrated portfolios. Therefore, the portfolio often looks quite different from its benchmark. For example, it is common for the fund to have meaningful sector over- or underweights. As of mid-year, the fund was 9.7% overweight to the consumer discretionary sector (20.3% vs. 10.6%) and underweight to the information technology sectors by an equal amount (15.7% vs. 25.5%). The fund is also overweight to the finance and communication services sectors—8.7% and 4.3% overweight relative to Russell 3000 Index, respectively.
The fund’s position in foreign equities increased slightly from the start of the year (up from 15% to 16.2% through mid-year). The fund’s weighted-average market cap stands at close to $240 billion at the end of June, while its median market cap is $39.4 billion (both figures are lower than where they stood at the start of the year).
We believe the fund comprises an eclectic mix of highly skilled, disciplined, and opportunistic stock pickers who have the potential to add significant additional value through concentrating in only their highest-conviction names.
Portfolio Breakdown as of 06/30/2022
By Sector |
Fund | Russell 3000 |
+/- | |||||||||
Finance |
20.3% | 11.6% | 8.7% | |||||||||
Consumer Discretionary |
20.3% | 10.6% | 9.7% | |||||||||
Information Technology |
15.7% | 25.5% | -9.8% | |||||||||
Communication Services |
12.4% | 8.1% | 4.3% | |||||||||
Health Care & Pharmaceuticals |
13.4% | 14.9% | -1.5% | |||||||||
Industrials |
7.6% | 8.9% | -1.2% | |||||||||
Consumer Staples |
4.5% | 6.4% | -1.9% | |||||||||
Real Estate |
2.7% | 3.7% | -1.0% | |||||||||
Utilities |
0.3% | 3.0% | -2.8% | |||||||||
Energy |
1.2% | 4.4% | -3.2% | |||||||||
Materials |
0.0% | 2.9% | -2.9% | |||||||||
Cash |
1.6% | 0.0% | 1.6% |
10 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
By Market Cap |
By Region | |
![]() |
![]() | |
Small Cap < $6.1 billion Mid Cap >$6.1 Billion<$33.9 billion Large Cap >$33.9 billion |
Significant Post June 30 Event
iM Global Partner Fund Management, the Investment Advisor for iMGP Equity Fund, is making significant changes to the fund’s line up of Subadvisors that includes the addition of a dedicated small/mid-cap manager as well as expanding each manager’s ability to own their highest-conviction ideas globally (the fund has always had the flexibility to invest globally but it is now a formal part of its investment objective). These changes were made with an effective date of August 1, 2022.
While these changes are material in scope, we believe them to be consistent with the fund’s original premise when it was launched back in 1996. It is with enthusiasm and confidence that we share details and rationale behind these changes.
Current managers Sands Capital, Fiduciary Management Inc., Harris Associates, and Davis [<<clean up names]—all long-time Subadvisors on the fund—were removed effective close of business on July 29, 2022. Polen Capital and Scharf Investments were being added and will manage sleeves alongside Nuance Investments, who will remain on the fund.
In total the new manager line-up includes four separate strategies as outlined below:
Strategy: Global Large-Cap Growth (20%)
Sub-Advisor: Polen Capital
Managers: Damon Ficklin and Jeff Mueller
Global Large-Cap Value (30%)
• |
Sub-Advisor: Scharf Investments |
• |
Managers: Brian Krawez and Gabe Houston |
Global Small and Midcap (SMID) Growth (20%)
• |
Sub-Advisor: Polen Capital |
• |
Manager: Rob Forker |
Global Mid-Cap Value (30%)
• |
Sub-Advisor: Nuance Investments |
• |
Managers: Scott Moore and Chad Baumler |
The changes are the result of an in-depth analysis focused on configuring a combination of managers we believe to be skilled in a way that can deliver the alpha we expected when we originally launched the fund. It reflects what we’ve learned after decades of research on active managers both in terms of the skills and discipline that give a manager an edge and how to craft and oversee mandates that individually and in combination maximize the odds of success—defined as materially beating a passive benchmark after fees.
Fund Summary | 11 |
We continue to believe, as we did when the fund was launched in 1996, that allowing skilled managers to own only their highest-conviction ideas is better than owning more-diversified portfolios because owning a large number of names leads to more index-like performance. We don’t believe in paying fees that are higher than those charged by index funds to get index-like performance. An additional benefit to these changes is a reduction in the operating expense ratio as IM Global Partner Fund Management has contractually agreed to limit the expenses of the fund to 0.98% through at least April 30, 2023.
We also continue to believe that giving managers latitude in the types of stocks they can own can confer an advantage over managers who are more tightly constrained to a “style box.” Those beliefs underlay the original premise of the fund to seek skilled managers, give them broad flexibility, limit them to their highest-conviction ideas, and create diversification by choosing managers with complementary styles to reduce risk. We believe that the revised configuration of fund preserves, if not enhances, those foundational concepts.
12 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
INVESTMENT MANAGER |
FIRM | TARGET MANAGER ALLOCATION |
MARKET CAPITALIZATION OF COMPANIES IN PORTFOLIO |
STOCK-PICKING STYLE |
BENCHMARK | |||||
Christopher Davis Danton Goei | Davis Selected Advisers, L.P. | 15% | Mostly large companies | Blend | S&P 500 Index | |||||
Pat English Jonathan Bloom | Fiduciary Management, Inc. | 15% | All sizes | Blend | S&P 500 Index | |||||
Bill Nygren | Harris Associates L.P. | 15% | Mostly large- and mid-sized companies | Value | Russell 3000 Value Index | |||||
Clyde McGregor | Harris Associates L.P. | 15% | All sizes, but mostly large- and mid-sized companies | Value | Russell 3000 Value Index | |||||
Scott
Moore Chad Baumler |
Nuance Investments, LLC | 15% | All sizes | Value | Russell 3000 Value Index | |||||
A. Michael Sramek | Sands Capital Management, LLC | 25% | All sizes, but mostly large- and mid-sized companies | Growth | Russell 1000 Growth Index |
iMGP Equity Fund Value of Hypothetical $10,000
The value of a hypothetical $10,000 investment in the iMGP Equity Fund from December 31, 1996 to June 30, 2022 compared with the Russell 3000 Index and Morningstar Large Blend Category
The hypothetical $10,000 investment at fund inception includes changes due to share price and reinvestment of dividends and capital gains. The chart does not imply future performance. Indexes are unmanaged, do not incur fees, expenses or taxes, and cannot be invested in directly.
Performance quoted does not include a deduction for taxes that a shareholder would pay on the redemption of fund shares.
Fund Summary | 13 |
SCHEDULE OF INVESTMENTS IN SECURITIES at June 30, 2022 (Unaudited)
Shares | Value | |||||||
COMMON STOCKS: 98.4% |
||||||||
Communication Services: 12.4% | ||||||||
3,990 | Alphabet, Inc. - Class A* | $ | 8,695,247 | |||||
886 | Alphabet, Inc. - Class C* | 1,938,081 | ||||||
2,610 | Charter Communications, Inc. - Class A* | 1,222,863 | ||||||
5,600 | Liberty Broadband Corp. - Class C* | 647,584 | ||||||
23,850 | Meta Platforms, Inc. - Class A* | 3,845,813 | ||||||
10,790 | Netflix, Inc.* | 1,886,847 | ||||||
22,898 | Sea Ltd. - ADR* | 1,530,960 | ||||||
25,800 | Tencent Holdings Ltd. - ADR | 1,171,062 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
20,938,457 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Consumer Discretionary: 20.3% | ||||||||
17,010 | Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. - ADR* | 1,933,697 | ||||||
50,580 | Amazon.com, Inc.* | 5,372,102 | ||||||
2,450 | Booking Holdings, Inc.* | 4,285,025 | ||||||
16,150 | Dollar General Corp. | 3,963,856 | ||||||
77,280 | General Motors Co.* | 2,454,413 | ||||||
25,810 | Hilton Worldwide Holdings, Inc. | 2,876,266 | ||||||
22,860 | JD.com, Inc. - ADR | 1,468,069 | ||||||
23,190 | Lear Corp. | 2,919,389 | ||||||
6,600 | Lithia Motors, Inc. | 1,813,746 | ||||||
42,440 | Prosus N.V. - ADR | 555,540 | ||||||
36,000 | Sodexo S.A.* | 2,527,263 | ||||||
25,900 | Sony Group Corp. | 2,117,772 | ||||||
28,355 | Thor Industries, Inc. | 2,118,969 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
34,406,107 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Consumer Staples: 4.5% | ||||||||
76,290 | Beiersdorf AG - ADR | 1,556,316 | ||||||
14,097 | Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. | 696,533 | ||||||
8,744 | Clorox Co. (The) | 1,232,729 | ||||||
164,319 | Henkel AG & Co. KGaA - ADR | 2,507,508 | ||||||
12,181 | Kimberly-Clark Corp. | 1,646,262 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
7,639,348 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Energy: 1.2% | ||||||||
18,400 | EOG Resources, Inc. | 2,032,096 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
Financials: 20.3% | ||||||||
77,300 | Ally Financial, Inc. | 2,590,323 | ||||||
44,300 | Bank of America Corp. | 1,379,059 | ||||||
41,015 | Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (The) | 1,710,736 | ||||||
14 | Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. - Class A* | 5,725,300 | ||||||
11,400 | Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. - Class B* | 3,112,428 | ||||||
56,360 | Capital One Financial Corp. | 5,872,149 | ||||||
44,050 | Charles Schwab Corp. (The) | 2,783,079 | ||||||
44,600 | Citigroup, Inc. | 2,051,154 | ||||||
759,900 | GoHealth, Inc. - Class A* | 454,344 | ||||||
17,000 | Reinsurance Group of America, Inc. | 1,993,930 | ||||||
4,779 | Travelers Cos., Inc. (The) | 808,272 | ||||||
40,320 | US Bancorp | 1,855,526 | ||||||
104,640 | Wells Fargo & Co. | 4,098,749 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
34,435,049 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Health Care: 13.4% | ||||||||
22,049 | Baxter International, Inc. | 1,416,207 | ||||||
9,730 | Cigna Corp. | 2,564,050 | ||||||
40,359 | Dentsply Sirona, Inc. | 1,442,027 | ||||||
27,772 | DexCom, Inc.* | 2,069,847 | ||||||
19,517 | Edwards Lifesciences Corp.* | 1,855,872 | ||||||
5,923 | ICU Medical, Inc.* | 973,682 |
Shares | Value | |||||||
Health Care (continued) | ||||||||
85,400 | Koninklijke Philips N.V. | $ | 1,837,637 | |||||
51,665 | LivaNova Plc* | 3,227,513 | ||||||
90,583 | Smith & Nephew Plc - ADR | 2,529,077 | ||||||
6,600 | UnitedHealth Group, Inc. | 3,389,958 | ||||||
8,852 | Universal Health Services, Inc. - Class B | 891,485 | ||||||
4,624 | Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc. | 485,797 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
22,683,152 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Industrials: 7.6% | ||||||||
17,475 | Carlisle Cos., Inc. | 4,169,710 | ||||||
24,325 | Ferguson Plc | 2,718,518 | ||||||
24,575 | General Electric Co. | 1,564,690 | ||||||
95,900 | KAR Auction Services, Inc.* | 1,416,443 | ||||||
33,229 | Knorr-Bremse AG - ADR | 472,849 | ||||||
31,350 | PACCAR, Inc. | 2,581,359 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
12,923,569 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Information Technology: 15.7% | ||||||||
1,019 | Adyen N.V.*(a) | 1,480,635 | ||||||
9,454 | Atlassian Corp. Plc - Class A* | 1,771,680 | ||||||
24,127 | Block, Inc.* | 1,482,845 | ||||||
15,040 | Cloudflare, Inc. - Class A* | 658,000 | ||||||
34,190 | Intel Corp. | 1,279,048 | ||||||
4,994 | Intuit, Inc. | 1,924,887 | ||||||
36,000 | Micron Technology, Inc. | 1,990,080 | ||||||
6,774 | ServiceNow, Inc.* | 3,221,172 | ||||||
27,500 | Shopify, Inc. - Class A* | 859,100 | ||||||
8,898 | Snowflake, Inc. - Class A* | 1,237,356 | ||||||
29,270 | TE Connectivity Ltd. | 3,311,901 | ||||||
9,512 | Twilio, Inc. - Class A* | 797,201 | ||||||
33,636 | Visa, Inc. - Class A | 6,622,592 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
26,636,497 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Real Estate: 2.7% | ||||||||
22,300 | CBRE Group, Inc. - Class A* | 1,641,503 | ||||||
99,500 | Cushman & Wakefield Plc* | 1,516,380 | ||||||
49,303 | Equity Commonwealth - REIT* | 1,357,311 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
4,515,194 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Utilities: 0.3% | ||||||||
19,065 | United Utilities Group Plc - ADR | 482,726 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
TOTAL
COMMON STOCKS |
166,692,195 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
Principal Amount |
||||||||
SHORT-TERM INVESTMENTS: 1.6% |
||||||||
REPURCHASE AGREEMENTS: 1.6% |
||||||||
$2,682,037 | Fixed Income Clearing Corp. 0.240%, 6/30/2022, due 07/01/2022 [collateral: par value $1,313,900, U.S. Treasury Inflation Index Bond, 3.625%, due 04/15/2028 value $2,736,138] (proceeds $2,682,055) | 2,682,037 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
TOTAL
SHORT-TERM INVESTMENTS |
2,682,037 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
TOTAL
INVESTMENTS |
169,374,232 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
Other Assets in Excess of Liabilities: 0.0% | 7,369 | |||||||
|
|
|||||||
NET ASSETS: 100.0% |
$ | 169,381,601 | ||||||
|
|
The accompanying notes are an integral part of these financial statements.
14 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
iMGP Equity Fund
SCHEDULE OF INVESTMENTS IN SECURITIES at June 30, 2022 (Unaudited) (Continued)
Percentages are stated as a percent of net assets.
ADR |
American Depositary Receipt |
REIT |
Real Estate Investment Trust |
* |
Non-Income Producing Security. |
(a) |
Security was purchased pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933 and may be sold in transactions exempt from registration only to qualified institutional buyers or in a public offering registered under Securities Act of 1933. |
The accompanying notes are an integral part of these financial statements.
Schedule of Investments | 15 |
iMGP International Fund (MSILX)
The iMGP International Fund lost 22.46% in the first half of 2022, lagging the 19.57% decline for the fund’s MSCI EAFE benchmark and the 19.25% loss for the Morningstar Foreign Large Blend category. Since the fund’s inception on December 1, 1997, the fund’s 5.93% annualized return is ahead of both the benchmark return of 4.35% and its peer group’s 3.63% return. Note that effective October 1, 2021 the fund changed its primary benchmark from the MSCI ACWI Index to the MSCI EAFE Index to reflect the current managers’ emphasis on investing in developed markets.
Performance as of 6/30/2022 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
Average Annual Total Returns | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Year to Date Return |
One- Year |
Three- Year |
Five- Year |
Ten- Year |
Since Inception (12/1/1997) |
|||||||||||||||||||
iMGP International Fund |
-22.46% | -20.26% | 0.18% | 0.24% | 3.88% | 5.93% | ||||||||||||||||||
MSCI ACWI ex US Index NET |
-18.42% | -19.42% | 1.35% | 2.50% | 4.83% | 4.71% | ||||||||||||||||||
MSCI EAFE Index NET |
-19.57% | -17.77% | 1.07% | 2.20% | 5.40% | 4.35% | ||||||||||||||||||
Morningstar Foreign Large Blend Category |
-19.25% | -18.72% | 1.14% | 1.89% | 4.82% | 3.63% | ||||||||||||||||||
Performance quoted represents past performance and does not guarantee future results. The investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that an investor’s shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost. Current performance of the funds may be lower or higher than the performance quoted. To obtain standardized performance of the funds, and performance as of the most recently completed calendar month, please visit www.imgpfunds.com. The Advisor has contractually agreed to waive a portion of its management fee through April 30, 2023. |
|
Performance of Managers
Of the fund’s three sub-advisors, only one (Mark Little, Lazard Asset Management) outperformed their respective benchmark in the first half of 2022. David Herro (Harris Associates) underperformed his value benchmark, while the Polen Capital team trailed their growth benchmark.
Key Performance Drivers
In the first half of 2022, both sector allocation and stock selection had negative impacts on performance. It is important to understand that the portfolio is built stock by stock and that sector weightings are a residual of the bottom-up, fundamental stock-picking process employed by each sub-advisor. That said, we do report on the short-term relative performance of both sector weights and stock selection to help shareholders understand the drivers of recent performance. It is also important to remember that the performance of a stock over a relatively short period tells us nothing about whether it will be a successful position; that is only known at the point when the stock is sold.
Selection within three sectors—industrials, information technology, and materials—contributed to returns in the first half of 2022. The portfolio’s industrial exposure benefited from CAE, a Canadian provider of pilot training services primarily for the civil aviation and defense markets. This holding is owned by Mark Little, who believes the company has exposure to the structural increase in demand for pilots, given the growth in air travel, aging demographics of certified pilots, and the ongoing regulatory requirement to maintain pilot skills. As the pandemic ensued, management has taken costs out of the business and has made accretive acquisitions, positioning the company to be larger and more profitable in the recovery. Now, pilots laid off during the pandemic are starting to work again and have urgent training requirements, leading to significant order intake for CAE’s civil business. On the defense side, the company has won a record number of orders from their pipeline before defense budget increases were announced—putting its book-to-bill ratio above 1x for the first time in four years. Additionally, CAE is the training provider for the German Air Force so should benefit from material defense spending increases in coming years.
Glencore, owned by David Herro, had a strong first half and was a leading contributor within the materials sector.
Herro notes that his team likes that Glencore is run by smart, hyper-competitive and value-focused managers with a focus on improving asset returns. In his estimation, Glencore differentiates itself from other miners with its trading business that provides high returns and cash flow with low cyclicality and significant barriers to entry. They appreciate the company’s leading market positions in attractive commodities and believe existing mining operations will benefit from normalized prices, higher volumes, lower costs, and the move towards a low carbon economy.
In Herro’s view, Glencore delivered a solid fiscal year 2021 earnings report as financial metrics improved materially year-over-year. In the marketing segment, earnings handily bested expectations ($3.7 billion vs. $3.5 billion). In metals, earnings increased to $2.5 billion from $1.7 billion for the year-ago period due to strong demand, supply constraints and inventory drawdowns. Herro’s team met with CEO Gary Nagle and CFO Steve Kalmin and discussed the massive impact the crisis in Ukraine is having on Glencore’s markets. As customers bypass Russian oil, natural gas and coal, the tightened supply translated to large price increases. In particular, European nations are now buying coal at elevated prices as a replacement for Russian natural gas, leading to stronger than expected free cash flow. Management also noted that the company now has 27 assets either in sale processes or under consideration on top of the nine assets already sold as part of the
16 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
portfolio simplification. In April, the company’s first-quarter production report showed strong performance from coal, which Herro found important given the high prices in the first quarter. Later, Glencore reached settlements for the U.S., U.K. and Brazil investigations with figures that look to align with the $1.5 billion provision from fiscal year 2021. Herro appreciates that Glencore is in strong financial shape in terms of its balance sheet and current cash flow generation and believe the company is well positioned to move forward with dividends and share repurchase programs. In June, Glencore provided a positive trading update, as marketing earnings for the first-half are expected to exceeded $3.2 billion, which is the at the top end of the company’s long-term earnings range for a fiscal year.
Despite overall stock selection being negative in the health care sector, the fund’s top contributor in the first half of 2022 was Bayer (owned by Herro). In his determination, Bayer’s merger with Monsanto creates the best agriculture business in the world within its vertical markets in terms of size and quality. Despite some recent glyphosate-related litigation issues, he believes Bayer’s collaboration with Monsanto should deliver benefits to its crop sciences business from increased channel access in the U.S. thanks to Monsanto’s direct dealings with farmers and expanded application of its seed growth solutions on additional quantities of Monsanto seed, which would afford a pathway to near-term revenue synergies. Bayer’s pharmaceutical business developed blood thinning drug XARELTO®, which is in wide use and has an excellent outlook over the medium-term, in Herro’s view, given that its patent is held until at least 2023 (or beyond depending on the country). In addition to its crop sciences and pharmaceutical businesses, Bayer is a leading global provider of over-the-counter consumer health products and possesses a robust portfolio of brands (including Aleve™, Alka Seltzer™, Claritin™, Afrin™ and MiraLAX™, among others), which supports a healthy level of continuing cash flow.
Bayer reported strong earnings results for 2021, in Herro’s view, with growth exceeding expectations across divisions. Notably, the crop science division delivered 11% growth, staging a robust recovery following two years of an agriculture downcycle and competitive challenges. Management’s increased guidance for crop sciences in 2022 calls for 7% organic growth and a 25-26% margin, which Herro believes is a key positive for the segment as it signals a long-awaited favorable transition toward profitable growth. In the pharmaceuticals division, revenue growth of more than 7% also bested expectations, supported by a strong recovery of Eylea, continued growth of Xarelto and the ramp of new products. Moreover, Bayer’s pipeline enjoyed notable successes in the period, including a favorable read-out for cancer drug Nubeqa. The Harris Associate’s team spoke with Bayer CFO Wolfgang Nickl who noted that tailwinds are robust in the business today. Notably, he expressed confidence in both the pricing and competitive backdrop in the crop sciences business as rate increases are layering into sales growth and cost cuts begin to come through. Bayer’s first quarter earnings report showed strength, in Herro’s view, surpassing consensus estimates across the board. In the crop business, growth accelerated 60% from herbicides as industry-wide capacity shortages led to windfall pricing and volume share gains for the company. However, supply and demand for glyphosate is expected to normalize in the second half of 2022. Without the tailwind from herbicides, the crop business still grew over 10% and margins improved ahead of forecasts as well. Strong consumer growth persisted and is now 27% above pre-Covid-19 levels. The pharma segment was the weakest as sales were pressured by volume-based pricing impacts on Xarelto, this is consistent with expectations and management still expects roughly flat product revenue for the year.
Turning to portfolio detractors for the period, ICON was a material drag on performance within the health care sector. The co-portfolio manager team at Polen Capital contends that ICON remains one of the world’s largest contract research organizations, structuring, administering, and delivering successful drug trial outcomes for the global biopharma industry. ICON completed a transformational acquisition in July 2021 when it acquired PRA Health Sciences, a deal that roughly doubled the company’s breadth and reach. The integration is going well with minimal employee and customer attrition. The team believes the company is well positioned to grow sales and profits at a steady clip in the coming five years. Deal synergies are being realized, including the tax benefits accruing from ICON’s Ireland domicile being applied to PRA’s US operations. Shares have underperformed this year as ICON’s valuation multiple compressed. Though some investors harbor cyclical concerns about early-stage funding drying up for venture backed biotech companies, such businesses account for less than 15% of ICON’s revenues. Further, management does not believe this cohort is at risk for funding shortfalls. Polen is looking through investor concerns and believes ICON’s business has superior scale and process management capabilities enabling it to win share within a steadily growing market. These views support Polen’s conviction that ICON can continue growing its earnings at a mid-teens rate for the next five years. Shares trade at ~17x forward 12 months earnings.
Although overall stock selection within the information technology sector was positive for the fund in the first half of 2022, Worldline, owned by Herro, was a large detractor. Herro appreciates Worldline’s position as a leader in European payments, and believes it has a long growth runway ahead due to Europe’s lower cashless penetration and higher levels of bank payment in-sourcing when compared to the U.S. He believes the payments industry is structurally attractive with high recurring revenues, low customer churn and strong free cash flow generation. In Herro’s view, Worldline’s revenue acceleration, which is driven by e-commerce business, travel recovery and synergy opportunities, is underappreciated by the market.
Early in the first quarter, Worldline completed its acquisition of Axepta Italy, a strategic partnership with BNL. It now owns 80% of Axepta Italy, which is a significant bank acquirer in the country. The partnership with BNL is in merchant services and is part of Worldine’s strategy to increase its presence across Europe. Worldline later posted strong fiscal year earnings results as revenue (EUR 3.69 billion vs. EUR 3.66 billion) and free cash flow (EUR 407 million vs. EUR 390 million) exceeded analysts’ estimates. Herro appreciated that fourth-quarter organic growth reached 12% versus the year-ago period and improved about 7% on a two-year basis, driven by merchant services’ 15.1% organic growth year-over-year. Moreover, Worldline’s organic revenues continued to progressively improve each quarter in 2021, leading to 6.8% organic growth for the full year, and margins improved 220 basis points in 2021 to reach 25.3%. The company also entered into an
Fund Summary | 17 |
agreement with Apollo Funds for the sale of its terminals, solutions & services business for a total consideration of EUR 2.3 billion in February. Management also struck a bullish tone on deal prospects in the coming year and highlighted that its pipeline is as full as it has ever been. Worldline also released an update on its exposure to the situation in Ukraine. It is enforcing all applicable sanctions and confirmed its exposure to business related to Russia was limited, accounting for just 1.5% of estimated 2021 pro forma revenue. Later, the company delivered a strong set of first-quarter earnings results, as exhibited by its 15.3% growth, of which 11.6% was organic growth. The merchant acquiring business drove much of this growth given: (1) the continued double-digit growth of the merchant count, (2) strong recovery in offline retail and travel, (3) ongoing cash to cashless transitions and (4) recent mergers and acquisitions. In addition, Worldline announced that CFO Eric Heurtaux would step down and be replaced by Gregory Lambertie who currently runs strategy, mergers and acquisitions and public/regulatory affairs at Worldline. In Herro’s estimation, the replacement could prove to be a good upgrade. The Harris Associates team met with CEO Gilles Grapinet in June, who expressed that the business is doing well, supported by a healthy European consumer in the second quarter. Overall, the investment thesis for the company remains intact.
Stock selection within the consumer discretionary sector was negative over the first six months. Evolution Gaming, owned by the team at Polen Capital, was a headwind to performance. They own Evolution Gaming because it is the world’s premier digital back-end solutions provider to the gaming industry. The business is poised to enjoy secular growth for a generation as gaming transforms from a destination-based experience to one enjoyed at home. Over the next 10-20 years, they believe gaming will increasingly shift out of the casino and into consumers’ homes via digital connectivity over the internet, cellular devices and connected TVs. This transition is just beginning in some important markets like the US and should largely flow through Evolution Gaming’s solutions. The company white labels live gaming so that casino operators can engage with consumers by offering a full suite of games from slots to game shows, to table games. The front-end experience bears the casino operator’s branding and management, but the games are administered by Evolution. Over the last quarter Evolution shares underperformed as investor sentiment soured on consumer discretionary businesses. This is linked to macro-oriented fears that consumer spending could wane from here. At roughly 20x forward 12-month earnings the team feels the stock is compellingly valued now given a long-term view that the company can compound earnings at greater than 20% per annum.
Top Contributors for the Six Months Ended June 30, 2022 | ||||||||||||||||||
Holding | Weight % | Return % | Contribution % | Benchmark Weight % |
Sector | |||||||||||||
Bayer AG |
1.98 | 13.66 | 0.39 | 0.4 | Healthcare | |||||||||||||
Glencore PLC |
1.30 | 8.71 | 0.24 | 0.38 | Materials | |||||||||||||
Incitec Pivot |
0.45 | 31.62 | 0.23 | 0.00 | Materials | |||||||||||||
Hensoldt AG |
1.23 | 2.21 | 0.04 | 0 | Information Technology | |||||||||||||
Grupo Televisa SAB ADR |
1.45 | -12.00 | 0.02 | — | Communication Services | |||||||||||||
JD.com Inc |
0.01 | -22.41 | -0.01 | 0 | Consumer Discretionary | |||||||||||||
Kering |
0.18 | -1.10 | -0.04 | 0.3 | Consumer Discretionary | |||||||||||||
CAE Inc |
2.43 | -2.66 | -0.06 | — | Industrial | |||||||||||||
Informa PLC |
2.15 | -8.22 | -0.15 | 0.07 | Communication Services | |||||||||||||
Sampo Oyj Class A |
2.54 | -7.09 | -0.16 | 0.15 | Financials | |||||||||||||
CocaCola European Partners |
2.57 | -7.16 | -0.17 | 0.07 | Consumer Staples |
Top Detractors for the Six Months Ended June 30, 2022 | ||||||||||||||||||
Holding | Weight % | Return % | Contribution % | Benchmark Weight % |
Sector | |||||||||||||
SAP SE |
3.26 | -34.74 | -1.23 | 0.74 | Information Technology | |||||||||||||
Credit Suisse Group AG |
2.62 | -41.09 | -1.18 | 0.13 | Financials | |||||||||||||
Icon PLC |
3.38 | -30.03 | -1.16 | — | HealthCare | |||||||||||||
Evolution Gaming |
2.67 | -36.08 | -1.11 | 0.12 | Consumer Discretionary | |||||||||||||
adidas AG |
2.38 | -37.90 | -1.02 | 0.27 | Consumer Discretionary | |||||||||||||
Worldline SA |
2.68 | -33.64 | -0.97 | 0.07 | Information Technology | |||||||||||||
Siemens Healthineers AG |
2.76 | -31.50 | -0.95 | 0.11 | HealthCare | |||||||||||||
Ryanair Holdings PLC ADR |
3.23 | -34.28 | -0.94 | — | Industrials | |||||||||||||
Temenos AG |
1.82 | -37.95 | -0.81 | 0.04 | Information Technology | |||||||||||||
Accenture PLC Class A |
2.02 | -32.65 | -0.79 | — | Information Technology |
18 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
Portfolio Mix
The International Fund portfolio is the result of three bottom-up stock pickers with diverse investment approaches building concentrated portfolios. Therefore, the portfolio often looks quite different from its benchmark. For example, it is common for the fund to have meaningful sector over- or underweights. As of mid-year, the fund was 8.3% overweight to the technology sector (16.1% vs. 7.8%) and underweight to the consumer staples and materials sectors by 6.0% and 6.3%, respectively. There were no significant changes in sector weightings over the first half of the year.
The fund’s position across different countries and regions did not materially change since the start of 2022. A significant overweight to Europe (84.4% versus 63.1% in the index) remains in place. The fund also remains without exposure to Japan—which is a 22.3% weighting with the index.
We believe the fund comprises an eclectic mix of highly skilled, disciplined, and opportunistic stock pickers who have the potential to add significant additional value through concentrating in only their highest-conviction names.
Portfolio Breakdown as of 06/30/2022
By Sector |
Fund | iShares EAFE ETF |
+/- | |||||||||
Finance |
20.3% | 17.6% | 2.7% | |||||||||
Consumer Discretionary |
14.2% | 11.3% | 2.9% | |||||||||
Information Technology |
16.1% | 7.8% | 8.3% | |||||||||
Communication Services |
9.0% | 5.0% | 4.0% | |||||||||
Health Care & Pharmaceuticals |
9.9% | 13.8% | -3.9% | |||||||||
Industrials |
14.4% | 14.9% | -0.5% | |||||||||
Consumer Staples |
4.8% | 10.9% | -6.0% | |||||||||
Real Estate |
0.0% | 2.9% | -2.9% | |||||||||
Utilities |
5.5% | 3.5% | 1.9% | |||||||||
Energy |
0.0% | 4.7% | -4.7% | |||||||||
Materials |
1.2% | 7.5% | -6.3% | |||||||||
Cash |
4.6% | 0.0% | 4.6% |
By Region |
By Market Cap | |
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![]() |
Fund Summary | 19 |
By Region |
Fund | iShares EAFE ETF |
+/- | |||||||||
Europe |
84.4% | 63.1% | 21.3% | |||||||||
North America |
5.4% | 1.0% | 4.3% | |||||||||
Asia ex-Japan |
5.4% | 4.8% | 0.7% | |||||||||
Japan |
0.0% | 22.3% | -22.3% | |||||||||
Latin America |
1.4% | 0.1% | 1.3% | |||||||||
Africa |
0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | |||||||||
Australia/New Zealand |
0.0% | 8.0% | -8.0% | |||||||||
Middle East |
3.4% | 0.7% | 2.7% | |||||||||
Other Countries |
0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
* Cash is excluded from calculation.
20 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
iMGP International Fund Managers
INVESTMENT MANAGER |
FIRM | TARGET MANAGER ALLOCATION |
MARKET
CAPITALIZATION OF COMPANIES IN PORTFOLIO |
STOCK-PICKING STYLE |
BENCHMARK | |||||
David Herro | Harris Associates L.P. | 33.33% | All sizes, but mostly large- and mid-sized companies | Value | MSCI World ex U.S. Value Index | |||||
Mark Little | Lazard Asset Management, LLC | 33.33% | All sizes | Blend/Relative Value | MSCI World ex U.S. Index | |||||
Todd Morris, Daniel Fields | Polen Capital Management LLC | 33.33% | All sizes | Growth | MSCI EAFE Index |
iMGP International Fund Value of Hypothetical $10,000.
The value of a hypothetical $10,000 investment in the iMGP International Fund from December 1, 1997 to June 30, 2022 compared with the MSCI EAFE Index and Morningstar Foreign Large Blend Category.
The hypothetical $10,000 investment at fund inception includes changes due to share price and reinvestment of dividends and capital gains. The chart does no imply future performance. Indexes are unmanaged, do not incur fees, expenses or taxes, and cannot be invested in directly.
Performance quoted does not include a deduction for taxes that a shareholder would pay on the redemption of fund shares.
Fund Summary | 21 |
SCHEDULE OF INVESTMENTS IN SECURITIES at June 30, 2022 (Unaudited)
Shares | Value | |||||||
COMMON STOCKS: 94.9% |
||||||||
Argentina: 0.6% | ||||||||
2,300 | MercadoLibre, Inc.* | $ | 1,464,801 | |||||
|
|
|||||||
Australia: 1.2% | ||||||||
566,700 | Glencore Plc* | 3,068,475 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
Canada: 2.7% | ||||||||
272,913 | CAE, Inc.* | 6,725,296 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
China: 5.9% | ||||||||
3,562,000 | China Longyuan Power Group Corp. Ltd. - Class H | 6,947,418 | ||||||
73,314 | Prosus N.V.* | 4,840,111 | ||||||
66,300 | Tencent Holdings Ltd. | 3,010,761 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
14,798,290 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Denmark: 2.0% | ||||||||
38,531 | Carlsberg A/S - Class B | 4,909,474 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
Finland: 2.6% | ||||||||
150,318 | Sampo Oyj - Class A | 6,539,083 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
France: 10.7% | ||||||||
120,000 | BNP Paribas S.A. | 5,707,554 | ||||||
567,425 | Engie S.A. | 6,578,855 | ||||||
6,290 | Kering S.A. | 3,264,592 | ||||||
7,510 | LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE | 4,629,804 | ||||||
173,600 | Worldline S.A.*(a) | 6,415,218 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
26,596,023 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Germany: 20.7% | ||||||||
30,575 | Adidas AG | 5,401,855 | ||||||
24,160 | Allianz SE | 4,607,158 | ||||||
58,300 | Bayer AG | 3,460,171 | ||||||
53,091 | Continental AG | 3,695,864 | ||||||
91,291 | CTS Eventim AG & Co. KGaA* | 4,778,455 | ||||||
94,115 | Daimler AG | 5,440,705 | ||||||
157,718 | Daimler Truck Holding AG* | 4,111,940 | ||||||
197,602 | Hensoldt AG | 4,985,760 | ||||||
90,780 | SAP SE | 8,261,616 | ||||||
132,520 | Siemens Healthineers AG(a) | 6,729,374 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
51,472,898 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Ireland: 6.8% | ||||||||
41,110 | ICON Plc* | 8,908,537 | ||||||
120,314 | Ryanair Holdings Plc - ADR* | 8,091,117 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
16,999,654 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Israel: 3.2% | ||||||||
1,526,215 | Israel Discount Bank Ltd. - Class A | 7,993,233 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
Italy: 1.4% | ||||||||
434,618 | GVS SpA(a)* | 3,552,542 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
Mexico: 1.4% | ||||||||
410,270 | Grupo Televisa SAB - ADR | 3,356,009 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
Netherlands: 5.3% | ||||||||
8,660 | ASML Holding N.V. | 4,175,169 | ||||||
73,728 | EXOR N.V. | 4,622,483 | ||||||
222,163 | Universal Music Group N.V. | 4,483,910 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
13,281,562 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
South Korea: 1.2% | ||||||||
15,610 | NAVER Corp. | 2,896,096 | ||||||
|
|
Shares | Value | |||||||
Spain: 4.1% | ||||||||
110,740 | Amadeus IT Group S.A.* | $ | 6,215,320 | |||||
215,590 | Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy S.A.* | 4,065,869 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
10,281,189 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Sweden: 2.6% | ||||||||
71,582 | Evolution AB(a) | 6,511,239 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
Switzerland: 4.3% | ||||||||
1,099,738 | Credit Suisse Group AG* | 6,257,993 | ||||||
51,650 | Temenos AG | 4,405,386 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
10,663,379 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
United Kingdom: 10.4% | ||||||||
358,184 | CNH Industrial N.V. | 4,152,855 | ||||||
138,595 | Coca-Cola European Partners Plc | 7,106,935 | ||||||
604,211 | Informa Plc* | 3,890,796 | ||||||
10,592,750 | Lloyds Banking Group Plc | 5,459,609 | ||||||
699,870 | Sage Group Plc (The) | 5,408,685 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
26,018,880 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
United States: 7.8% | ||||||||
17,743 | Accenture Plc - Class A | 4,926,344 | ||||||
33,916 | Aon Plc - Class A | 9,146,467 | ||||||
60,104 | Medtronic Plc | 5,394,334 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
19,467,145 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
TOTAL
COMMON STOCKS |
236,595,268 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
Principal Amount |
||||||||
SHORT-TERM INVESTMENTS: 3.4% |
||||||||
REPURCHASE AGREEMENTS: 3.4% |
||||||||
$8,588,473 | Fixed Income Clearing Corp. 0.240%, 6/30/2022, due 07/01/2022 [collateral: par value $4,207,100, U.S. Treasury Inflation Index Bond, 3.625%, due 04/15/2028 value $8,761,096] (proceeds $8,588,530) | 8,588,473 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
TOTAL
SHORT-TERM INVESTMENTS |
8,588,473 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
TOTAL
INVESTMENTS |
245,183,741 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
Other Assets in Excess of Liabilities: 1.7% | 4,254,600 | |||||||
|
|
|||||||
NET ASSETS: 100.0% |
$ | 249,438,341 | ||||||
|
|
Percentages are stated as a percent of net assets.
ADR |
American Depositary Receipt |
L.P. |
Limited Partnership |
* |
Non-Income Producing Security. |
(a) |
Security was purchased pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933 and may be sold in transactions exempt from registration only to qualified institutional buyers or in a public offering registered under Securities Act of 1933. |
The accompanying notes are an integral part of these financial statements.
22 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
iMGP Oldfield International Value Fund
The iMGP Oldfield International Value Fund declined 16.72% in the six-month period, compared to losses of 12.12% for the MSCI EAFE Value Index and a 13.30% decline for the Morningstar Foreign Large Value Category.
Performance as of 6/30/2022 |
||||||||||||
Year to Date Return |
One-Year | Average Annual Total Return Since Inception 11/30/2020) |
||||||||||
iMGP Oldfield International Value Fund |
-16.72% | -18.95% | -0.04% | |||||||||
MSCI EAFE Value NR USD |
-12.12% | -11.95% | 1.77% | |||||||||
MSCI EAFE NR USD |
-19.57% | -17.77% | -6.35% | |||||||||
Morningstar Fund Foreign Large Value |
-13.30% | -13.12% | 1.96% | |||||||||
Past performance does not guarantee future results. Index performance is not illustrative of fund performance. An investment cannot be made directly in an index. The investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that an investor’s shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost. Current performance of the fund may be lower or higher than the performance quoted. To obtain the performance of the funds as of the most recently completed calendar month, please visit www.imgpfunds.com. Investment performance reflects fee waivers and expense limitations in effect through April 30, 2023. In the absence of such waivers, total return would be reduced. |
|
In the first six months of 2022, the iMGP Oldfield International Value Fund and its MSCI EAFE Value benchmark fell by less than the broader MSCI EAFE Index. Value is doing better, as one might expect, given its propensity to have lower starting valuations and is helping protect capital in the current environment. At the end of June, the Financial Times reported that equity markets had suffered their worst first half performance in more than 50 years after the declines seen so far in 2022, triggered by the Federal Reserve curtailing Quantitative Easing. Risks remain around further de-rating and earnings expectations. At the stock level, companies are facing severe margin pressures across the board owing to rising interest rates, wages, input costs, pricing pressures and concerns around end demand.
The stocks with the biggest negative impact on relative performance during the period were, Embraer (-51%, total return in local currency), Siemens (-34%), easyJet (-34%), E.on (31%) and Samsung Electronics (-27%).
The share price of Embraer, the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer and leading global producer of regional jets, has been weak given the month-long shutdown in production announced earlier in the year. This is due to a final re-integration of the commercial aviation unit after the aborted bid by Boeing. In addition, the collapse of investor appetite for Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, or SPACS, has also impacted Embraer’s SPAC for its EVE unit. EVE is developing a short range electric vertical take-off and landing ‘flying taxi’ seating five people that will aim to replace helicopters and some taxi routes primarily in urban settings. Whilst we acknowledge that this remains a somewhat speculative endeavour it has more chance of success than most with Embraer’s excellent engineering track record, a €5bn order backlog and targeting commercial operations by 2026. We do not include this in our valuation and yet some analysts are valuing this well in excess of the entire market value of Embraer. Embraer continues to recover from its COVID induced collapse and we see its intrinsic value as significantly higher than today’s level.
Siemens, as a German industrial, has been impacted by the ongoing conflict in the Ukraine which threatens the supply of energy to Germany which is heavily reliant on Russian gas which accounted for some 55% of Germany’s gas consumption (40% for Europe as a whole) before the war. These concerns were heightened by Russia curtailing supplies through the existing Nord Stream 1 pipeline seemingly to prevent Germany building gas inventories over the summer months. We believe the impact on the fundamentals of Siemens has been more than priced into the shares. Earnings projections for Siemens remain flat over the last six months and we note that it is now a global business with only 28% of its workforce based in Germany. If we strip out the current market value of the Siemens Healthineers business which has a separate listing, the forward PE for the Siemens group is around 8x which is very low for the quality of this business. Concerns around energy supply have also impacted E.on, which as the main German energy networks business which should be a relatively defensive share in more normal times. Its valuation has now fallen to 9x price-to-earnings when a more normalised valuation level of 14x is deemed appropriate. It now offers an attractive dividend yield of 6.3% which is 1.8x covered.
The global airline sector has been up ended by COVID followed by the oil price increase. We are witnessing the pent-up demand for foreign holidays recover which paradoxically is shown by the chaos at European airports. The recovery in demand is greater than available airport capacity. These issues should be ironed out over the next few months. Delays in giving airport staff security clearance were one of the main reasons highlighted by the industry for continued travel disruption. The UK’s Department for Transport states that the time taken for security clearance is now 10 days, half the time it took in March. Leisure travel is seen as discretionary spend and hence vulnerable in any downturn. However, given the recovery, as we emerge from two years of COVID induced lockdowns, it is evident that consumers are starting to prioritize services over goods in their spending. We hold a leading low-cost airline in easyJet, who will not only out-compete their legacy rivals but also benefit from consumers trading down.
The stocks with the largest positive impact on the strategy’s relative performance were, in order of their impact, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) (+81%, total return in local currency), Bayer (+25%), BT Group (+10%), Sanofi (+13%) and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial (+19%).
Fund Summary | 23 |
MHI, the Japanese industrial conglomerate covering sectors such as energy, aviation, and logistics, is the biggest contributor to fund performance year to date, providing a total return of +81% in local currency terms and, despite the weakness of the Yen, +54% in US dollar terms. In its Energy business it is one of the world’s largest suppliers of power installations from gas turbines to nuclear. Clearly in a world where energy security concerns will be elevated, it has numerous businesses which are highly relevant. It is also a leader in the growing areas of hydrogen and carbon capture technologies that will be needed to reach Net Zero targets. At the end of December last year, Seiji Izumisawa, the Chief Executive of MHI briefed reporters that the group could require a sweeping overhaul and restructuring to focus the group on businesses with the strongest opportunity set. We have been engaging on this issue with the company since we bought the shares in 2017. MHI’s shares were strong from the start of 2022 on the back of the CEO’s comments but since the war in Ukraine began investors have also noted that MHI is Japan’s largest defence contractor.
Over the period, we completed the sales of Nokia and Kansai Electric Power and the purchase of a new position in LG Household & Health Care (LG H&H). In March, we switched some of the Sanofi holding that had been defensive into Fresenius that had suffered a weak share price after its poorly handled results day announcement. LG H&H is a Korean consumer goods company with three core businesses: Home Care & Daily Beauty (HDB), Cosmetics, and Refreshments. Since IPO in 2001, Cosmetics comprise 70% of operating profit and has grown rapidly over the last decade at about 14% per annum, driven primarily by its luxury skin care brand “The History of Whoo” in China. A large part of Whoo sales are to Chinese consumers through resellers buying the products in duty free stores in Korea. This channel has been hit by COVID-related travel restrictions which has seen a 97% fall in Chinese tourist numbers visiting South Korea which has led resellers to seek price discounts. It continues to be impacted by the continued lockdowns in China. On any relaxation of the COVID-related travel restrictions between China and Korea, we expect the revenues to increase. LG H&H’s shares have more than halved in price since their January 2021 peak. We view fair value at 50% above the prevailing price on a two-year view. We have now also taken a third bite in easyJet and hence have reached our limits in adding to that position, with the second bite being the participation in the rights issue. The weighted average upside in the portfolio is now at 55% this this is one of the highest levels seen in recent years.
Portfolio Breakdown as of 06/30/2022
By Sector |
Fund | iShares EAFE Value ETF |
+/- | |||||||||
Finance |
21.7% | 25.1% | -3.4% | |||||||||
Consumer Discretionary |
9.6% | 8.5% | 1.1% | |||||||||
Information Technology |
4.3% | 2.6% | 1.7% | |||||||||
Communication Services |
7.5% | 6.4% | 1.2% | |||||||||
Health Care & Pharmaceuticals |
15.3% | 10.4% | 4.9% | |||||||||
Industrials |
17.8% | 10.2% | 7.6% | |||||||||
Consumer Staples |
12.1% | 8.0% | 4.0% | |||||||||
Real Estate |
0.0% | 4.6% | -4.6% | |||||||||
Utilities |
3.1% | 6.0% | -2.9% | |||||||||
Energy |
4.4% | 8.8% | -4.4% | |||||||||
Materials |
0.0% | 9.4% | -9.4% | |||||||||
Cash |
4.2% | 0.0% | 4.2% |
By Region |
Fund | iShares EAFE Value ETF |
+/- | |||||||||
Europe |
60.4% | 63.5% | -3.1% | |||||||||
North America |
0.0% | 0.8% | -0.8% | |||||||||
Asia ex-Japan |
17.1% | 4.4% | 12.7% | |||||||||
Japan |
19.4% | 22.6% | -3.2% | |||||||||
Latin America |
3.1% | 0.2% | 2.9% | |||||||||
Africa |
0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | |||||||||
Australia/New Zealand |
0.0% | 7.9% | -7.9% | |||||||||
Middle East |
0.0% | 0.7% | -0.7% | |||||||||
Other Countries |
0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
* Cash is excluded from calculation.
24 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
iMGP Oldfield International Value Fund Value of Hypothetical $10,000
The value of a hypothetical $10,000 investment in the iMGP Oldfield International Value Fund from November 30, 2020 to June 30, 2022 compared with the MSCI EAFE Value Index and Morningstar Foreign Large Value Category.
The hypothetical $10,000 investment at fund inception includes changes due to share price and reinvestment of dividends and capital gains. The chart does not imply future performance. Indexes are unmanaged, do not incur fees, expenses or taxes, and cannot be invested in directly.
Performance quoted does not include a deduction for taxes that a shareholder would pay on the redemption of fund shares.
Fund Summary | 25 |
iMGP Oldfield International Value Fund
SCHEDULE OF INVESTMENTS IN SECURITIES at June 30, 2022 (Unaudited)
Shares | Value | |||||||
COMMON STOCKS: 93.3% |
||||||||
Brazil: 3.0% | ||||||||
72,300 | Embraer S.A. - ADR* | $ | 634,794 | |||||
|
|
|||||||
China: 3.9% | ||||||||
58,700 | Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.* | 837,296 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
France: 4.4% | ||||||||
9,324 | Sanofi | 941,906 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
Germany: 17.9% | ||||||||
22,397 | Bayer AG | 1,329,287 | ||||||
79,094 | E.ON SE | 662,899 | ||||||
32,623 | Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA | 987,447 | ||||||
8,244 | Siemens AG | 838,174 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
3,817,807 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Italy: 4.4% | ||||||||
78,302 | Eni SpA | 929,234 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
Japan: 18.6% | ||||||||
10,600 | East Japan Railway Co. | 542,314 | ||||||
26,500 | Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. | 927,481 | ||||||
212,800 | Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. | 1,138,501 | ||||||
188,600 | Nomura Holdings, Inc. | 689,770 | ||||||
42,700 | Toyota Motor Corp. | 657,562 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
3,955,628 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Netherlands: 4.1% | ||||||||
14,037 | EXOR N.V. | 880,070 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
South Korea: 12.5% | ||||||||
12,189 | KT&G Corp. | 771,569 | ||||||
1,842 | LG H&H Co. Ltd. | 965,301 | ||||||
847 | Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. - GDR | 924,077 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
2,660,947 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Sweden: 3.4% | ||||||||
85,855 | Svenska Handelsbanken AB - Class A | 733,641 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
United Kingdom: 21.1% | ||||||||
708,527 | BT Group Plc | 1,606,534 | ||||||
191,899 | easyJet Plc* | 857,258 | ||||||
2,313,079 | Lloyds Banking Group Plc | 1,192,184 | ||||||
268,677 | Tesco Plc | 835,026 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
4,491,002 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
TOTAL
COMMON STOCKS |
19,882,325 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
PREFERRED STOCK: 2.6% |
||||||||
Germany: 2.6% | ||||||||
8,319 | Porsche Automobil Holding SE - (Preference Shares) | 549,706 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
TOTAL
PREFERRED STOCK |
549,706 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
TOTAL
INVESTMENTS |
20,432,031 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
Other Assets in Excess of Liabilities: 4.1% | 878,759 | |||||||
|
|
|||||||
NET ASSETS: 100.0% |
$ | 21,310,790 | ||||||
|
|
Percentages are stated as a percent of net assets.
ADR |
American Depositary Receipt |
GDR |
Global Depositary Receipt |
* |
Non-Income Producing Security. |
The accompanying notes are an integral part of these financial statements.
26 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
iMGP SBH Focused Small Value Fund (PFSVX)
The iMGP SBH Focused Small Value Fund fell 19.78% in the first half of 2022, finishing the period behind the 17.31% loss for the Russell 2000 Value Index benchmark, and the 15.10% decline for the Morningstar Small Value category. Since the fund’s inception in July 2020, the fund has gained 10.92% compared to the 20.17% gain for the benchmark.
Performance as of 6/30/2022 |
||||||||||||
Year to Date Return |
One-Year | Average Annual Total Return Since Inception (7/31/2020) |
||||||||||
iMGP SBH Focused Small Value Fund |
-19.78% | -17.51% | 10.92% | |||||||||
Russell 2000 Value |
-17.31% | -16.28% | 20.17% | |||||||||
Russell 2000 |
-23.43% | -25.20% | 9.00% | |||||||||
Morningstar Small Value Category |
-15.10% | -12.02% | 22.25% | |||||||||
Gross Expenses : 1.48%, Net Expenses: 1.15%
Performance quoted represents past performance and does not guarantee future results. The investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that an investor’s shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost. Current performance of the funds may be lower or higher than the performance quoted. Short term performance is not a good indication of the fund’s future performance and should not be the sole basis for investing in the fund. To obtain standardized performance of the funds, and performance as of the most recently completed calendar month, please visit www.imgpfunds.com. Returns less than one year are not annualized. The Advisor has contractually agreed to limit the expenses of the fund through April 30, 2023. |
|
Portfolio Commentary from SBH
When it comes to our outlook and positioning, there are two issues that currently frame our thinking. First, supply chain issues continue to plague corporate America. Many of the companies in the portfolio have struggled to show an effective turnaround. The economic slowdown should help this situation and lead to improved production runs, as well as demonstrate the improvements implemented by management teams in recent quarters. There were glimpses of the supply chain improvement and improving visibility of production efficiencies early this year until the Russia/Ukraine war occurred followed shortly by the zero-COVID lockdowns in China which wreaked havoc on normalcy. While we are disappointed by these circumstances, we believe the management teams are pragmatic and creative when identifying solutions that will service customers. Indeed, in meeting with management teams this quarter, we were taken aback to learn that many of them were hoping for a recession to help reset demand factors, in order to speed up the return to “normal” supply chains. The Federal Reserve (Fed) seems to be focused on facilitating this outcome given its recent tightening of interest rates and consequently the cost of capital and liquidity dynamics. While we do not wish for recessions, we believe the portfolio’s companies can manage downturns due to their focus on return improvement.
The other source of disappointment for us during the quarter was our downside capture. This was atypical for our portfolio and due almost exclusively to our significant underexposure to Energy. The sector was a significant headwind during the second quarter (and first half of the year), exacerbated by Energy being over 10% of the index weight (the June Russell index reconstitution cut Energy’s percentage in half). The Russia/Ukraine war materially benefited the sector’s outperformance which is highly dependent on the disruption continuing and global demand holding up. We focus on management teams that have self-help and significant improvement in rates of change on Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) through better decision making and an improved overall focus on culture, incentives, and governance. Companies in the Energy sector offer limited control on many of these factors with profit performance often predicated on the “spot” price of an underlying commodity as opposed to “good people doing the right thing.” For this reason, the portfolio has been historically underweight the sector. At times, this will hurt performance.
As we look to the second half of 2022, we are faced with the daunting task of trying to understand the macro environment and anticipate the effects of the many moving parts well outside the normal economic cycle factors. What we see is not encouraging from an overall economic perspective given the significant increase in interest rates and, accordingly, costs of capital. Additionally, margins broadly are being negatively impacted by the inflation backdrop while demand destruction has just begun. Historically, as companies’ margins degrade, employment starts to show weakening signs. The slew of companies which were able to raise capital over the last couple of years, companies that in our view should not have received a dime under normal capital outlay scenarios, will be facing a reckoning should policymakers be dedicated to getting things back into balance. Until the global central bankers stop the tightening of conditions on a rate of change basis, volatility will remain (inflation-driven bear markets historically are some of the most volatile).
If there is any bright spot in such a scenario, it is that companies executing on well-conceived plans to allocate capital will thrive while those who relied on perpetual easy money will fall by the wayside. Trying to determine whether the monetary authorities or Congress will have the political fortitude to stay the course and let inflationary pressures subside and allow interest rates to find their own level or not is close to being a fool’s errand. We think focusing on putting your capital with management teams that respect capital, proactively prepare
Fund Summary | 27 |
for negative shocks, and can withstand a period of less than robust economic conditions are of utmost importance, and a far better use of our time. We have raised our cash levels over the last few months to improve liquidity in order to redeploy capital into an increasing number of what we feel are attractive opportunities, some of which have already pulled back 80% to 90% over the last year with plenty of financial flexibility and should be positioned for secular tailwinds. We believe the coming months will prove to be some of the most critical in our investment career given the rates of change and systemic risks. We clearly are not perfect, but we are constantly seeking ways to improve our growing team. As always, we appreciate your interest and vote of confidence in our philosophy and process.
Key Performance Drivers
The three sectors that contributed most to the portfolio’s performance relative to its benchmark in the first half of year were Real Estate (driven by selection), Health Care (driven by allocation), and Communication Services (driven by allocation). Real Estate holding Equity Commonwealth was a top contributor on an individual stock basis. Company management team has remained extremely patient in deploying capital over the last couple of years as it was not seeing attractive risk-adjusted return opportunities. As interest rates have risen and overall economic activity is at risk of entering a recession, we see a solid backdrop for the company to be in an enviable position of deploying its significant cash holdings into mispriced opportunities in the market.
Another key stock contributor in the period was Modine Manufacturing, a maker of automotive components. The stock’s performance was driven by the company’s new CEO’s significant rejuvenation of the organization. The management team has adopted a simplification approach to all revenue streams which is eliminating complexity and driving both pricing, margins, and Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) higher. We believe the stock is attractively valued based on the current run-rate of earnings and profitability being generated.
Mercury Systems, a technology company serving the aerospace and defense industry, was the second-largest individual contributor in the period. Our thesis for owning Mercury was driven by the company’s initiative to reduce internal costs, which should improve capital allocation and result in higher margins as defense spending across the globe provides a sizeable tailwind to the business. We believe the business should be attractive to strategic and/or financial organizations, as two activist investors now are represented on the board of directors. We believe the business remains undervalued.
The three sectors that detracted most from the portfolio’s performance relative to its benchmark in the quarter were Energy (driven by allocation), Materials (driven by selection) and Consumer Staples (driven by selection). Materials holding Compass Minerals was the top detractor during the quarter after having been a strong contributor in the first quarter. Compass has faced rapidly rising fuel costs this year, which they have not been able to pass along quickly to customers. We do expect that as their annual contracts renew over the next couple months, they will be able to recover most, if not all, of these higher expenses on a go-forward basis.
Within Consumer Staples, Hain Celestial was the largest detractor. HAIN faced facing significant inflationary and supply chain issues over the last year and the invasion of Ukraine has further accelerated some of these issues. Although HAIN has been very aggressively raising prices to offset these higher costs, the timing of a full recovery and the overall elasticity of their price increases are more in question as demand patterns become less clear going forward.
Six Flags Entertainment was at Consumer Discretionary company that declined in the period. Our thesis for owning Six Flags was driven by the new CEO’s strategy, which is to focus on premium pricing while upgrading the amusement parks to be more family friendly by providing higher quality food and drink offerings. The stock has underperformed as investors worry a recession will cause further pressure on park attendance. We believe the stock is attractively valued; however, the new premium pricing strategy is early in its rollout and therefore we will wait for further evidence it will add value.
Another Consumer Discretionary holding that detracted from relative performance was Gildan Activewear. The reason for adding Gildan to the portfolio centered around the company being the most vertically-scaled and integrated manufacturer of apparel in the U.S. The management team has implemented a “Back to Basics” strategy to focus on simplicity (e.g., reducing selling, general and administrative expenses (SG&A), massively reducing stock-keeping units (SKUs), and exiting an unproductive private label) which has driven ROICs from a historical 14-15% range to ~20%+. We believe the current valuation of the stock is very compelling as the business is not receiving credit for the structural improvements that have been made to its business model and its attractive ROIC profile. The stock has underperformed year-to-date primarily due to concerns around the consumer slowing, cotton price volatility, and the potential for channel destocking. We believe the concerns are reasonable and may be impactful in the short term; however, longer term prospects are compelling as Gildan maintains structurally higher margins and an attractive ROIC profile as more retailers look to near-shore their apparel sourcing for which Gildan is well positioned.
Materials holding, Glafelter Corp. was a top detractor in the period. Our thesis for owning Glafelter was driven by the company’s dominant market share globally in its core engineered material markets which we believed would significantly improve returns and growth; however, the rapid rise of European energy costs has caused a large cost headwind. The management team is aggressively renegotiating contracts with customers and implementing a dynamic pricing model in order to recapture these costs. The largest driver of the company’s underperformance was the worsening situation in Europe which caused earnings to miss expectations. We believe the stock is attractively valued; however, until we see some resolution of the Russia/Ukraine war, which would cause energy prices to fall, the company has to focus on paying down debt.
28 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
While the Energy sector was a large detractor in the period, one the portfolio’s top contributors in the period was PDC Energy. Our thesis for owning PDC Energy was driven by the company’s transformation of refocusing capital towards its highest-return acreage in Colorado while committing to paying down a significant amount of debt. Overall profitability and returns have been buoyed by higher oil and natural gas prices. We view its valuation as attractive given the current level of oil and gas prices; however, prices could remain volatile and influence valuation.
Top Contributors for the Six Months Ended June 30, 2022 | ||||||||||||||||||
Holding | Weight % | Return % | Contribution % | Benchmark Weight % |
Sector | |||||||||||||
PDC Energy Inc |
2.21 | 27.28 | 0.43 | 0.46 | Energy | |||||||||||||
Mercury Systems |
1.34 | 20.51 | 0.28 | — | Information Technolgoy | |||||||||||||
SP Plus Corp |
2.96 | 8.86 | 0.21 | — | Industrials | |||||||||||||
Equity Commonwealth |
2.56 | 6.29 | 0.13 | 0.22 | Real Estate | |||||||||||||
Modine Manufacturing |
1.94 | 4.36 | 0.10 | — | Industrials | |||||||||||||
Helmerich & Payne Inc |
0.05 | 12.34 | 0.09 | 0.31 | Energy | |||||||||||||
KBR Inc |
3.46 | 2.10 | 0.09 | 0.06 | Industrials | |||||||||||||
CSG Systems Intl |
1.65 | 4.49 | 0.06 | 0.07 | Information Technolgoy | |||||||||||||
Lakeland Financial |
0.20 | 1.12 | 0.04 | 0.13 | Financials | |||||||||||||
Southstate Corp |
0.05 | 2.87 | 0.01 | 0.45 | Financials | |||||||||||||
Top Detractors for the Six Months Ended June 30, 2022 | ||||||||||||||||||
Holding | Weight % | Return % | Contribution % | Benchmark Weight % |
Sector | |||||||||||||
Glatfelter Corp |
2.58 | -58.72 | -1.93 | 0.04 | Materials | |||||||||||||
The Hain Celestial Group |
3.04 | -44.29 | -1.57 | — | Consumer Staples | |||||||||||||
Coty Inc Class A |
4.22 | -23.71 | -1.22 | — | Consumer Discretionary | |||||||||||||
Faro Technologies Inc |
1.49 | -54.91 | -1.22 | 0.03 | Information Technolgoy | |||||||||||||
Regal Rexnord Corp |
3.04 | -32.94 | -1.08 | — | Industrials | |||||||||||||
Compass Minerals Intl |
3.65 | -30.29 | -1.00 | — | Materials | |||||||||||||
Six Flags Entertainment |
1.90 | -49.04 | -0.95 | — | Consumer Discretionary | |||||||||||||
Circor International Inc |
2.01 | -39.70 | -0.85 | — | Industrials | |||||||||||||
Gildan Activewear Inc |
2.36 | -31.41 | -0.81 | — | Consumer Discretionary | |||||||||||||
NCR Corp |
3.38 | -22.61 | -0.74 | — | Information Technology |
Portfolio Breakdown as of 06/30/2022
By Sector |
Fund | Russell 2000 Value |
+/- | |||||||||
Finance |
16.6% | 28.4% | -11.8% | |||||||||
Consumer Discretionary |
7.1% | 9.6% | -2.5% | |||||||||
Information Technology |
12.9% | 6.1% | 6.8% | |||||||||
Communication Services |
0.0% | 3.3% | -3.3% | |||||||||
Health Care & Pharmaceuticals |
5.0% | 11.0% | -6.0% | |||||||||
Industrials |
34.4% | 12.7% | 21.6% | |||||||||
Consumer Staples |
6.3% | 2.9% | 3.4% | |||||||||
Real Estate |
3.2% | 11.9% | -8.7% | |||||||||
Utilities |
0.0% | 5.3% | -5.3% | |||||||||
Energy |
3.7% | 5.0% | -1.3% | |||||||||
Materials |
6.9% | 3.9% | 3.0% | |||||||||
Cash |
4.1% | 0.0% | 4.1% |
Fund Summary | 29 |
Summary Statistics | ||||
Market Cap Median (bn) |
2.4 | |||
Weighted Average Market Cap (bn) |
2.9 | |||
# of Holdings |
40 |
iMGP SBH Focused Small Value Fund Value of Hypothetical $10,000.
The value of a hypothetical $10,000 investment in the iMGP SBH Focused Small Value Fund from July 31, 2020 to June 30, 2022 compared with the Russell 2000 Value Index and Morningstar Small Value Fund Category.
The hypothetical $10,000 investment at fund inception includes changes due to share price and reinvestment of dividends and capital gains. The chart does not imply future performance. Indexes are unmanaged, do not incur fees, expenses or taxes, and cannot be invested in directly.
Performance quoted does not include a deduction for taxes that a shareholder would pay on the redemption of fund shares.
30 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
iMGP SBH Focused Small Value Fund
SCHEDULE OF INVESTMENTS IN SECURITIES at June 30, 2022 (Unaudited)
Shares | Value | |||||||
COMMON STOCKS: 95.9% |
||||||||
Consumer Discretionary: 7.1% | ||||||||
39,054 | Gildan Activewear, Inc. | $ | 1,123,974 | |||||
24,234 | Harley-Davidson, Inc. | 767,248 | ||||||
118,634 | Modine Manufacturing Co.* | 1,249,216 | ||||||
18,718 | Six Flags Entertainment Corp.* | 406,181 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
3,546,619 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Consumer Staples: 6.3% | ||||||||
266,468 | Coty, Inc. - Class A* | 2,134,409 | ||||||
41,534 | Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (The)* | 986,017 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
3,120,426 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Energy: 3.7% | ||||||||
14,123 | Helmerich & Payne, Inc. | 608,136 | ||||||
19,608 | PDC Energy, Inc. | 1,208,049 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
1,816,185 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Financials: 16.6% | ||||||||
28,235 | Glacier Bancorp, Inc. | 1,338,904 | ||||||
38,822 | National Bank Holdings Corp. - Class A | 1,485,718 | ||||||
27,989 | Pacific Premier Bancorp, Inc. | 818,398 | ||||||
47,570 | Seacoast Banking Corp. of Florida | 1,571,713 | ||||||
7,005 | SouthState Corp. | 540,436 | ||||||
64,688 | Umpqua Holdings Corp. | 1,084,818 | ||||||
46,542 | United Community Banks, Inc. | 1,405,103 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
8,245,090 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Health Care: 4.9% | ||||||||
7,959 | ICU Medical, Inc.* | 1,308,380 | ||||||
49,000 | Orthofix Medical, Inc.* | 1,153,460 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
2,461,840 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Industrials: 34.3% | ||||||||
36,075 | Apogee Enterprises, Inc. | 1,414,862 | ||||||
16,455 | Astec Industries, Inc. | 671,035 | ||||||
31,482 | AZZ, Inc. | 1,285,095 | ||||||
18,707 | Beacon Roofing Supply, Inc.* | 960,792 | ||||||
52,313 | CIRCOR International, Inc.* | 857,410 | ||||||
13,466 | EnerSys | 793,955 | ||||||
39,547 | KBR, Inc. | 1,913,679 | ||||||
15,799 | Mercury Systems, Inc.* | 1,016,350 | ||||||
45,016 | Quanex Building Products Corp. | 1,024,114 | ||||||
11,604 | Regal Beloit Corp. | 1,317,286 | ||||||
105,966 | REV Group, Inc. | 1,151,850 | ||||||
57,295 | SP Plus Corp.* | 1,760,102 | ||||||
31,446 | SPX Corp.* | 1,661,607 | ||||||
56,411 | Sterling Construction Co., Inc.* | 1,236,529 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
17,064,666 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Information Technology: 12.9% | ||||||||
36,256 | Belden, Inc. | 1,931,357 | ||||||
116,908 | Conduent, Inc.* | 505,043 | ||||||
15,718 | CSG Systems International, Inc. | 938,050 | ||||||
50,267 | NCR Corp.* | 1,563,806 | ||||||
32,173 | Progress Software Corp. | 1,457,437 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
6,395,693 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Materials: 6.9% | ||||||||
41,452 | Compass Minerals International, Inc. | 1,466,986 | ||||||
60,205 | Element Solutions, Inc. | 1,071,649 |
Shares | Value | |||||||
Materials (continued) | ||||||||
127,809 | Glatfelter Corp. | $ | 879,326 | |||||
|
|
|||||||
3,417,961 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Real Estate: 3.2% | ||||||||
57,269 | Equity Commonwealth - REIT* | 1,576,616 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
TOTAL
COMMON STOCKS |
47,645,096 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
TOTAL
INVESTMENTS |
47,645,096 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
Other Assets in Excess of Liabilities: 4.1% | 2,030,260 | |||||||
|
|
|||||||
NET ASSETS: 100.0% |
$ | 49,675,356 | ||||||
|
|
Percentages are stated as a percent of net assets.
REIT |
Real Estate Investment Trust |
* |
Non-Income Producing Security. |
The accompanying notes are an integral part of these financial statements.
Schedule of Investments | 31 |
iMGP Alternative Strategies Fund
The iMGP Alternative Strategies Fund (Institutional Share Class) declined 8.51% for the first six months of 2022. During the same period, the ICE BofA 3-Month Treasury Bill Index returned 0.14%, the Morningstar Multistrategy category declined 4.18%, the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index lost 5.05%, and the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index dropped 10.35%.
Note: Given the phase-out of LIBOR indexes, the fund’s official benchmark has changed to the ICE BofA 3-Month Treasury Bill Index.
Performance as of 6/30/2022 |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||
Average Annual Performance | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Year to Date |
One Year |
Three Year |
Five Year |
Ten Year |
Since Inception (9/30/11) |
|||||||||||||||||||
iMGP Alternative Strategies Fund Instl |
-8.51% | -8.78% | 1.16% | 1.82% | 3.27% | 3.72% | ||||||||||||||||||
iMGP Alternative Strategies Fund Inv |
-8.62% | -9.09% | 0.90% | 1.56% | 3.02% | 3.47% | ||||||||||||||||||
ICE BofA US 3-Month Treasury Bill |
0.14% | 0.17% | 0.63% | 1.11% | 0.64% | 0.60% | ||||||||||||||||||
Bloomberg Aggregate Bond Index |
-10.35% | -10.29% | -0.93% | 0.88% | 1.54% | 1.76% | ||||||||||||||||||
Morningstar Multistrategy Category |
-4.18% | -3.08% | 1.90% | 1.99% | 2.57% | 2.71% | ||||||||||||||||||
Performance quoted represents past performance and does not guarantee future results. The investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that an investor’s shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost. Current performance of the fund may be lower or higher than the performance quoted. Other share classes may impose other fees. To obtain standardized performance of the funds, and performance as of the most recently completed calendar month, please visit wwwpartnerselectfunds.com. The Advisor has contractually agreed to waive a portion of its management fee through April 30, 2023. |
|
Since its inception on September 30, 2011, the fund’s annualized return is 3.72% with a volatility (standard deviation) of 4.72%, and a beta to the U.S. stock market (Russell 3000) of 0.28. This compares to the 3-Month Treasury Bill Index return of 0.60%, the Morningstar Multistrategy category return of 2.71%, the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index return of 1.86% and the U.S. Aggregate Bond Index return of 1.76%.
The Risk/Return Statistics table below presents some of the key performance metrics that we track for the fund.
iMGP Alternative Strategies Fund, Risk/Return Statistics, 6/30/22 |
| |||||||||||||||
MASFX |
Bloomberg Barclays Agg |
Morningstar Multistrategy |
HFRX Global Hedge Fund |
|||||||||||||
Annualized Return |
3.72 | 1.76 | 2.71 | 1.86 | ||||||||||||
Total Cumulative Return |
48.15 | 20.64 | 33.27 | 21.88 | ||||||||||||
Annualized Std. Deviation |
4.72 | 3.41 | 4.25 | 4.24 | ||||||||||||
Sharpe Ratio (Annualized) |
0.67 | 0.35 | 0.50 | 0.31 | ||||||||||||
Beta (to Russell 1000) |
0.28 | 0.03 | 0.27 | 0.25 | ||||||||||||
Correlation of MASFX to... |
1.00 | 0.26 | 0.91 | 0.87 | ||||||||||||
Worst 12-Month Return |
-8.78 | -10.29 | -5.71 | -8.19 | ||||||||||||
% Positive 12-Month Periods |
0.83 | 0.70 | 0.78 | 0.71 | ||||||||||||
Upside Capture (vs. Russell 1000) |
27.34 | 6.65 | 25.38 | 22.12 | ||||||||||||
Downside Capture (vs. Russell 1000) |
27.74 | 0.04 | 31.45 | 31.27 | ||||||||||||
Upside Capture (vs. AGG) |
83.64 | 100.00 | 69.24 | 46.45 | ||||||||||||
Downside Capture (vs. AGG) |
22.07 | 100.00 | 28.36 | 17.70 | ||||||||||||
Source: Morningstar Inc. |
||||||||||||||||
Since inception (9/30/11) |
Portfolio Commentary
The fund is down 8.5% for the first half of the year. Without mincing words, this is disappointing to us, both as stewards of your capital as well as fellow shareholders. Part of our goal is preserving capital while generating good absolute returns over a full market cycle. This recent absolute performance is short of what we would have hoped to deliver. But since the Fund’s inception, we have also been clear that shareholders could expect the fund to be down in the mid-single digits during an equity bear market. And we have seen that play out so far this year.
Although the fund trailed the Agg slightly in the second quarter, it is still outperforming by nearly 200 basis points through the first half of the year (and roughly 13 percentage points cumulatively over the last two years).
32 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
We all recognize the main drivers, clear in retrospect: stubbornly high and persistent inflation, exacerbated by Russia’s war in Ukraine, which drove accelerated aggressive monetary tightening by the Fed. This in turn punished long-duration assets: bonds obviously, but also previous market leaders like dominant large cap growth stocks, which had been seen as relative safe havens compared to more cyclical assets, resulting in rich valuation multiples that have been crushed by higher discount rates and fear of slowing growth.
The virtuous cycle of QE is also reversing, draining liquidity from the system and tightening financial conditions when consumer confidence is already extremely low. Much of the financial market commentary and discussion now is of the other shoe dropping, whether it be a technical recession or “just” slowing growth accompanied by falling corporate profits, which would presumably result in further equity market losses. Losses in one or multiple areas of financial markets often drives selling in other parts, causing risk premia to widen even in areas not directly impacted, even including those with reasonably strong fundamentals, producing contagion. The chances of the Fed “threading the needle” and controlling inflation without significantly hurting the economy seem remote at this point. None of this is breaking news, of course, but negative headlines abound. However, without minimizing the challenges (and of course the related “real-world” pain), we think there is reason for cautious optimism.
A lot of bad news and negative sentiment are already priced into financial markets. Things can always be worse than consensus expectations, and we fully recognize the Fed seems committed to breaking inflation almost regardless of the cost to equity markets. However, we think the Alternative Strategies Fund is set up to produce quite attractive performance over the next multiple quarters or more going forward. (This is not to say that returns couldn’t decline further from here in the short or even medium term—they absolutely could.) In the past we have bristled at managers seemingly brushing off periods of weak performance and focusing only on the glorious outlook going forward, as if no one experienced the painful road traveled to arrive at the precipice of the promising future. That is not our intention, but having acknowledged the challenges both in the fund’s recent performance and the economy and markets, we think it is important to maintain a balanced perspective.
The fund’s portfolio has rarely been as attractive as it is currently, in our view. The credit strategies are yielding in the upper single digits on a blended basis (and have some dry powder in cash) with a blended duration under three years. The merger arbitrage portfolio offers an average annualized deal spread well into the teens after holding up relatively well during the difficult first half of the year. Deals can break, spreads can widen, and defaults can increase, but these spread levels have historically been very attractive entry points even if they don’t necessarily mark “the bottom” for merger arbitrage returns, which is of course impossible to time with any precision. The long-short credit strategy has protected capital well through market turmoil, and its fundamental drivers now appear to be at their most attractive since late 2018/early 2019 (which preceded the strategy’s strongest year of performance): credit spreads are wide, volatility is increasing, and there is wide dispersion in company fundamentals and default probabilities, which are still in the early stages of being fully reflected by the market. Lastly, FPA’s portfolio, the largest contributor to returns since inception but the most volatile and highly correlated with the equity market, has unsurprisingly been hit the hardest this year. Without going into detail here, we believe it is also attractive, with a mix of value and quality growth businesses at reasonable valuations, pockets of special situations, and the optionality of a healthy cash balance. The FPA sleeve is the most market-sensitive, but is the smallest allocation within the fund. It also has the highest short-term upside in the event of positive surprises relative to market expectations.
Finally, we will also note that we are in the later innings of research and discussions about adding a new strategy to the fund and will very likely be able to announce something later this year. The strategy would have been extremely beneficial over the last two to four quarters, but is not so geared to a particular macro or market environment that it would have detracted from the fund’s performance in other periods. It should improve the fund’s risk-adjusted returns across different environments and reduce drawdowns like the current one. We have always tried to avoid overreacting to recent events (for example, we evaluated but didn’t add tail-risk strategies following March 2020, to the benefit of returns the rest of the year and in 2021), so we wouldn’t say this is a reaction to performance this year. In fact, strategies of this type have been the subject of our interest and research for several years, and 2022 certainly did nothing to temper our enthusiasm. We are excited about the prospects for the fund going forward, and even more so as we envision it with this likely addition.
Thank you for your investment in the fund. We look forward to updating you at year-end, hopefully with significantly better results.
Performance of Managers
For the first half of 2022, the returns by manager/strategy are as follows: Blackstone Credit Systematic Group down 1.07%; Water Island down 2.73%; DoubleLine down 10.50%; Loomis Sayles down 12.07%; and FPA Contrarian Opportunity strategy down 13.73%. (All returns are net of the management fee charged to the fund.)
Strategy Allocations
The fund’s capital is allocated according to its strategic target allocations: 25% to DoubleLine, 19% each to Blackstone Credit Systematic Group (DCI), Loomis Sayles, and Water Island, and 18% to FPA. We use the fund’s daily cash flows to bring the manager allocations toward their targets when differences in shorter-term relative performance cause divergences.
Fund Summary | 33 |
CURRENT TARGET STRATEGY ALLOCATIONS AS OF JUNE 30, 2022
Manager Commentaries
Blackstone Credit Systematic Group (formerly DCI):
The Blackstone Long-Short Systematic Credit strategy returned -1.07% (net of fees) in H1, after returning -0.04% (net) in Q2, even as the S&P 500 declined 21%, credit indices dropped 14%, and the U.S. 10-year Treasury returned -11% for the first half. Risk-repricing dominated the market as valuations declined along with higher discount rates and on growing fears of a profits slowdown and potential recession. Rates moves have been very large as the Treasury yields rocketed higher on the torrid inflation data and the Fed’s move to jumbo-sized rate hikes; and interest rate volatility hit crisis levels as the MOVE index matched its Covid heights. High yield index spreads were nearly 300 bps wider over the 6 months and the VIX index jumped up to end the quarter at 29. Only oil bucked the trend as crude rallied further and WTI closed June at about $106.
The long-short systematic credit strategy continued to deliver mixed performance as both the bond sleeve and CDS overlay delivered only modest alpha gains for the first half and the contribution from residual betas was negative. The net contribution on credit beta, which is well matched in the portfolio, was a few bps negative. The rates contribution accounted for most of the strategy’s underperformance for H1. The portfolio is well-hedged out the rate curve but retains some residual exposure to front-end yields. This net duration has been close to 1⁄2 year, which accounts for about -0.80% to portfolio performance amidst the move higher in Fed funds this year. Given the aggressive Fed pricing already in the market, this exposure becomes a modest tailwind going forward and, indeed, was a small positive contributor in Q2.
The alpha environment has continued to be challenging amidst the beta-dominant market moves, and we are eagerly anticipating an opportunity to generate more consistent alpha as the market finally differentiates along fundamentals in the second half. The alpha potential has gotten large as spreads, volatilities, and dispersion of fundamentals and default probabilities are all elevated. The CDS strategy delivered small positive gains, led by gains from short retail and short autos positions and mostly offset by long transports and energy. Alpha in the bond sleeve was a small positive as our long positions, especially in energy held up well.
Our portfolio views have not changed much and we continue to see balanced positioning across recovery names in the portfolio, which remains comforting amidst the new reopening. Energy continues to be attractive to us, despite the market rally, because the sector recovery has gained traction and the longer-term prospects—particularly so given higher oil prices—look positive relative to spread levels. The portfolio risk spend is, as usual, concentrated in idiosyncratic names and the portfolio continues to be unusually neutral in most sectors. We are long in energy and newly long again in consumer goods (favoring some selective retail and consumer brands). We also are broadly neutral, running a bit underweight, in financials. We remain long in technology (especially consumer-facing and networking) and short in telecoms.
DoubleLine:
For the six months ended June 30, 2022, the DoubleLine Opportunistic Income portfolio performed approximately in-line with the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index return of -10.35%.
34 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
Market Environment
This period in the markets was a rather unfavorable investment environment as inflation readings remained high and the Federal Reserve (Fed) consequently pursued hawkish monetary policy. Specifically, the Fed hiked its policy rate by 150 basis points during the period and also announced the official tapering of its asset purchasing (QE) program. US Treasury yields rose rapidly, with total increases of 222 basis points for 2-year notes and 150 basis points for 10-year notes. The response from financial assets was unfavorable across-the-board as both stocks and bonds experienced steep declines. In total for the period, the Bloomberg US Treasury Index fell 9.14%, the Bloomberg Investment Grade Corporate Bond Index fell 14.39%, the Bloomberg High Yield Bond Index fell 14.19%, and the S&P 500 Index fell 19.96%.
Relative Performance Discussion
The Opportunistic Income portfolio maintained a large allocation to fixed income credit throughout this period, consistent with its opportunistic mandate. The portfolio’s benchmark, the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index, perennially maintains a roughly 70% allocation to government-backed assets. Our portfolio was able to perform in-line with the Agg Index, despite its higher credit risk, due to active duration management and asset allocation. In terms of duration management, the portfolio consistently maintained a lower duration than the Index which bolstered relatively performance as rates rose sharply. As for asset allocation, most of the credit sectors in the portfolio outperformed the credit allocation in the Index, resulting in some additional boost to relative performance.
The top-performing sectors in the portfolio over this period were non-Agency CMBS and non-Agency RMBS. These sectors generated high levels of monthly interest income which helped offset price declines from rising rates and rising credit risk premiums. In addition, strong property valuations caused generally high levels of borrower equity and therefore reduced or created non-existent incentives for default. The worst-performing sectors were Agency MBS and emerging market debt. The emerging market holdings experienced credit spread widening during the latter portion of this performance period as recessionary fears gripped global markets. Agency MBS experienced duration-related price declines as well as some negative sentiment in the market stemming from the Federal Reserve’s tapering of monthly asset purchases.
Forward Outlook
With the Federal Reserve taking strong measures to tighten financial conditions, we expect volatility in financial markets to remain elevated. Consequently, we will continue to manage the Opportunistic Income portfolio with a sizeable allocation to fully secured assets with low structural leverage, such as residential and commercial mortgage loans. On the corporate side, we see some risks to corporate earnings in the coming quarters and will therefore continue to take a more targeted approach to investing in these assets. Exposures will be selected on a line item basis and will often include out-of-index assets.
FPA:
Performance Overview
The FPA Contrarian Opportunity strategy declined 10.88% (net of fees) in 2022’s second quarter and declined 12.69% for the trailing twelve months. The Fund generated 85.0% of the average of the S&P 500 and MSCI ACWI NR USD’s (“MSCI ACWI”) return in the trailing twelve months, underperforming its 74.6% average net risk exposure.1
During the first half of 2022, from its peak on January 5th to the end of June, the MSCI ACWI declined more than 20%. As discussed in prior commentaries, we had been concerned about inflation and were running the portfolio more invested than the recent past in an effort to protect purchasing power. With an average net risk exposure of 73% during this same period, the Fund was not immune to the market selloff, capturing 67% of the average market decline (based on the average return of the S&P 500 and MSCI ACWI indices).2
The decline in global equity indexes was broad-based, leaving little unscathed, with energy as one of the few exceptions, as rising interest rates, high inflation, fears of a weakening economy, and greater caution around funding risky, money-losing companies. Market declines can be psychologically difficult, but are to be expected, and can be used to allocate capital towards re-priced and newly attractive opportunities. We are predisposed to lean into price weakness by adding to what we believe are quality businesses at increasingly attractive prices, acquiring debt at equity-like returns, building positions in long-admired franchises, and occasionally seeking out opportunities in distressed and deeply out-of-favor situations.
1 |
Risk assets are any assets that are not risk free and generally refers to any financial security or instrument, such as equities, commodities, high-yield bonds, and other financial products that are likely to fluctuate in price. Risk exposure refers to the Fund’s exposure to risk assets as a percent of total assets. The Fund’s net risk exposure as of June 30, 2022 was 75.1%. |
2 |
The recent market decline for the MSCI ACWI index began January 5, 2022 and is ongoing. During the period Jan 5, 2022 through June 30, 2022, the S&P 500 and the MSCI ACWI NR USD declined 20.42% and 20.57%, respectively; while the Fund declined 13.77% during the same period. |
Fund Summary | 35 |
Portfolio discussion
Exhibit B: Trailing Twelve-Month Contributors and Detractors as of June 30, 20223
Contributors | Perf. Cont. |
Avg.% of Port. |
Detractors | Perf. Cont. |
Avg.% of Port. |
|||||||||||||||||
Glencore |
0.56% | 2.2% | LG Corp | -2.63% | 1.1% | |||||||||||||||||
Meggitt |
0.51% | 0.2% | Meta Platforms | -1.51% | 2.5% | |||||||||||||||||
LPL Financial |
0.28% | 1.0% | Charter Communications | -0.83% | 2.4% | |||||||||||||||||
Aon |
0.28% | 2.2% | Naspers & Prosus | -0.77% | 2.2% | |||||||||||||||||
American International Group |
0.25% | 2.8% | Citigroup | -0.73% | 2.2% | |||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||
1.86% | 8.4% | -6.48% | 10.4% |
In the last twelve months, the Fund’s top five performers contributed 1.9% to its return, while its bottom five detracted 6.5%. We believe that some of these ups and downs might prove ephemeral, but we address where our thesis is being validated or where it might be broken.
Glencore is one of the largest globally diversified commodity businesses operating both industrial and marketing businesses. Importantly, we believe Glencore operates in a genuinely shareholder-oriented manner. We purchased Glencore off-and-on from 2018 through 2020 at what we believe is a single digit multiple of normal earnings power. The opportunity presented itself when investors were less willing to own commodity sensitive businesses due to a period of low inflation and general disregard for valuation. Net of distributions of above average cyclical profits likely to be earned in 2022, we believe the company still trades at an attractive valuation relative to its long-term earnings power, justifying its continued presence in the portfolio.
Our investment thesis on the names that have detracted from performance have not materially changed but we highlight the following two.
Prosus’ stock price has declined along with the values of their investment portfolio. Our thesis has somewhat improved as management recently announced a share repurchase program that will be funded, in part, by periodic and partial sales of its Tencent holding. Given that its stock price trades at a greater than 35% discount to its estimated net asset value (NAV), share repurchases should be accretive. The Company’s stock price has appreciated 26% since the announcement.4
Charter Communications, one of the portfolio’s investments in the US cable industry, is an example of us leaning into fear. This investment has underperformed in the last year but still trades above the Fund’s cost basis. The industry has been plagued by fears of video cord cutting, and competition from 5G and Fiber to the Home. This allowed us to buy and to continue to hold Charter Communications. This business trades at what we believe is a reasonable valuation and we think should have attractive growth in free cash flow over the next decade. We expect that it will allocate that free cash flow in the best interest of shareholders, given that it is controlled by owner-operators.
The Contrarian Opportunity portfolio had net risk exposure at the end of the second quarter of 75.51%, marginally higher (just 1%) than its exposure at the end of the first quarter. We added eight new positions to the portfolio and exited four in the quarter. Some of the new positions in the portfolio include CarMax and investments in convertible bonds.
CarMax has three operating segments: used retail, used wholesale, and used auto lending. The general market decline and recession concerns have caused its stock price to decline by almost half since it peaked in Q4 2021. CarMax is the largest US company in the used car retail space. We think CarMax has the opportunity to gain share in the market due to its strong wholesale business, historically good returns on capital, and an excellent management team that invests for the future and allocates capital with an owner-oriented mindset.5 Recessionary concerns are valid as their lending business, in particular, will likely be hurt. We would not be surprised to see its stock price decline as a result and would consider the opportunity to increase the portfolio’s stake at that time.
Convertible Bonds—High-yield exposure in the portfolio fell to just 1.0% in Q4 of last year. We explained in Q4 2021 this low exposure was because of historically low yields and spreads to Treasuries. Since Q4, the U.S. high-yield bond index has declined 10% as both Treasury yields have increased, and credit spreads have widened. We have begun to see some compelling risk-adjusted opportunities in convertible bonds specifically for the first time since 2000. Many stocks have seen a tremendous decline in price, particularly those companies that are still in their earlier stages with business models that have yet to be optimized. Some of these companies had raised money to fund their growth via convertible bonds initially with yields of 1% and lower. With the conversion price now well out of the money due the decline in
Past Performance is no guarantee, nor is it indicative, of future results. |
3 |
Reflects the top five contributors and detractors to the Fund’s performance based on contribution to return for the trailing twelve months (“TTM”). Contribution is presented gross of investment management fees, transactions costs, and Fund operating expenses, which if included, would reduce the returns presented. The information provided does not reflect all positions purchased, sold or recommended by FPA during the quarter. It should not be assumed that recommendations made in the future will be profitable or will equal the performance of the securities listed. |
Past performance is no guarantee, nor is it indicative, of future results. |
4 |
Source: Prosus announcement, June 27, 2022. Appreciation is in Euros, the local currency. https://www.prosus.com/news/the-group-announces-the-beginning-of-an-open-ended-share-repurchase-programme-of-prosus-and-naspers-shares/ |
5 |
Source: FPA, recent Company filings, Automotive News. As of June 30, 2022. |
36 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
their stock prices, the bonds have traded down and now offer what we believe are attractive yields to intermediate term maturities that leave some optionality should these businesses succeed. If this is the case, we would expect the market to reward them with a higher stock price that should translate to a higher bond price; and an outside chance that the convertible feature pays off prior to maturity. The average yield-to-maturity of these bonds is currently 11.5%, 310 basis points better than the 8.4% yield currently offered in the U.S. high-yield market.6 The allocation to these bonds is small for now, but we are hopeful a combination of a further increase in interest rates and continued stock market volatility may allow us to increase the allocation to this space.
Outlook (observations on current environment)
We are often asked about our “outlook.” Which is kind of funny because we have never made a market forecast and, like everyone else, are regularly surprised by world events. While there is always plenty to worry about (insert list of worries), we agree with Jamie Dimon, who on JP Morgan’s second quarter 2022 call, in response to a question about pending economic hurricanes, observed “going through a storm,—that gives us opportunities, too. I always remind myself the economy will be a lot bigger in 10 years, we’re here to serve clients through thick or thin.” There will always be a place in the portfolio for good businesses at good prices, and you should expect to see the portfolio’s risk exposure increase should those prices become attractive. As always, we will be conservative in our underwriting, and let price be our guide.
Despite our no-market prediction philosophy, we do think it is useful to observe current conditions and pricing for financial assets, in order to avoid potholes, focus research attention and calibrate risk appetite.
In bonds, we mentioned the initial fruits of our labor in convertible bonds. Stepping back, we would observe that the U.S. high-yield market is approaching 2016 and 2020 yield levels, but credit spreads are still below the 800+ basis point spreads seen in both of those periods, despite there being no official recession in 2016.
Exhibit C: US High-Yield Effective Yield and Option-Adjusted Spread7
6 |
Source: FPA, Bloomberg. As of June 30, 2022. |
Past performance is no guarantee, nor is it indicative, of future results. |
7 |
Source: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED). As of June 30, 2022. |
Past performance is no guarantee, nor is it indicative, of future results. |
Fund Summary | 37 |
In equities, more traditional value stocks are no longer as inexpensive, unlike March 2020 when value spreads (the cheapest 20% of the market versus the market average) got to 2008 levels of cheapness. We have therefore spent more time considering (and adding to) faster growing, better quality businesses, many of which are both less expensive than the market today and where they have historically been valued, as supported in the following Exhibits D and E
Exhibit D: Valuation Spreads—The Cheapest Quintile Compared to the Market Average (1926 – June 30, 2022)8
8 |
Source: Empirical Research Analysis, National Bureau of Economic Research. As of June 30, 2022. Cheapest quintile refers to the most undervalued 20% of stocks in an analysis of large-capitalization US stocks. Standard Deviation is a measure of dispersion of a data set from its mean. Prior to 1952, the spread is measured using the price-to-book data of the largest 1,500 stocks. Current Level refers to the valuation spread as of June 30, 2022 which is 0.4 standard deviations above the mean. |
38 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
Exhibit E: The Big Growers—Relative Price to Sales Ratio9
We will remain flexible and seek to take advantage of opportunities that present a margin of safety, whether they are perceived as “value” or “growth.”10
Relatively speaking, international markets continue to trade at lower valuations than that of the US, as shown in Exhibit F below. That explains, in part, the portfolio’s increase in international exposure from 19.1% to 26.7% of the portfolio’s net equities over the last three and a half years. We continue to find attractive opportunities outside of the U.S.
9 |
Source: Empirical Research Partners (“ERP”) Analysis, National Bureau of Economic Research, as of June 5, 2022. Equally-weighted data. ERP categorized a group of 75 US large-capitalization stocks that they have faster and stronger growth credentials than the rest of the US large-cap universe as ‘Big Growers’. The analysis covers the period January 1960 through June 5, 2022. |
10 |
Margin of Safety—Buying with a “margin of safety” is when a security is purchased at a discount to the portfolio manager’s estimate of its intrinsic value. Buying a security with a margin of safety is designed to protect against permanent capital loss in the case of an unexpected event or analytical mistake. A purchase made with a margin of safety does not guarantee the security will not decline in price. |
Past performance is no guarantee, nor is it indicative, of future results. |
Fund Summary | 39 |
Exhibit F: Twelve-Month Forward Price to Earnings Ratio Discount MSCI AC World Index ex-US vs S&P 500 Index11
Closing
We are living through what is not our first volatile period. While we cannot tame volatility, we have learned to make friends with it. A decline in price can afford us the opportunity to buy as much as an increase can offer the chance to sell. We believe our hyper focus on price and business quality should allow us to successfully navigate this current turbulent moment in time.
Respectfully submitted,
FPA Contrarian Value Portfolio Management Team
11 |
As of June 30, 2022. Source: Factset, MSCI, Standard & Poor’s, J.P. Morgan Asset Management Guide to the Markets. Forward Price to Earnings is a version of the ratio of price-to-earnings (P/E) that uses forecasted earnings for the P/E calculation. |
Past results are no guarantee, nor are they indicative, of future results. |
40 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
Loomis Sayles:
PORTFOLIO REVIEW
With a semi-annual net return of -12.07%, the portfolio trailed its benchmark, the three-month Treasury Bill Index, which returned 0.14%
High yield corporate bond spreads significantly widened during the first half of the year; reflecting risk- off sentiment driven by challenging macroeconomic and technical dynamics. Lingering covid effects contributed to supply chain issues and knock-on inflationary pressure. Within the portfolio, high yield corporates detracted from performance. Consumer and communications issues were primarily responsible for the sector’s negative performance.
During the period, emerging market assets faced headwinds caused by a US dollar, global growth concerns, inflationary pressures, and broad aversion to risk. Within the portfolio, emerging markets assets weighed on performance, with Chinese and Mexican exposures being primarily responsible.
Despite generally supportive fundamentals, investment grade corporate bond spreads meaningfully widened over the period amid uncertainty around the persistency of inflation and the pace of central bank tightening in response. For the portfolio, investment grade corporates detracted from performance, with financial and communications names being particularly responsible.
Our global rates tools, primarily through the usage of sovereign bonds and interest rate futures, contributed to performance. The yields of the benchmark 10-year and 30-year US treasuries experienced volatility during the period as a result of persistent elevated inflation and Fed hawkishness. These key yields increased from 1.52% to 2.98% and 1.93% to 3.14% respectively. Within the portfolio, our short exposure to US treasury futures was primarily responsible for the allocation’s positive performance over the period.
OUTLOOK
Throughout the first half of 2022, the macroeconomic environment and outlook became more challenging. Increased geopolitical risk, led by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, added a strong supply chain shock to an already concerning inflationary environment just as continued Covid-19 shutdowns in China created further uncertainty. The US Federal Reserve, in an effort to get ahead of these shocks, announced the end of its quantitative easing program and delivered increasingly aggressive rate hikes of 25 basis points in March, 50 basis points in May and 75 basis points in June. As investors priced in a more hawkish Fed and growth expectations diminished, interest rates continued their move higher and risk assets came under pressure.
In our view, the credit cycle has shifted from the “expansion” phase to “late cycle” with a macroeconomic environment that consists of potentially slower growth and inflation that will likely moderate but remain above the Fed’s target. In our base case, growth will likely trend lower but stay resilient as a healthy consumer, positive corporate fundamentals and a strong banking system should help provide a backdrop for continued economic activity. Inflationary pressures will potentially remain sticky, with expectations for elevated commodity prices and persistent supply issues combined with a tight labor market. We believe this environment warrants an accelerated process of normalizing monetary policy, which would increase the potential for a policy mistake as the Fed, and other global central banks, embark on tighter monetary policy to combat inflation even as growth concerns have been increasing.
We are mindful of the risks inherent to our credit cycle and macroeconomic outlook, such as ongoing global supply chain disruptions, tighter financial conditions resulting from global central bank rate hikes and quantitative tightening, slowing Chinese growth and increased geopolitical risk. All of the turmoil around the world leaves us with a wide range of potential outcomes, but the probability of a downturn in 2023 has risen. As a result, we have modestly reduced portfolio risk and increased the level of cash reserve-like, higher quality instruments that can offer flexibility. With increased uncertainty surrounding economic activity, the path of inflation and subsequent Fed policy, we expect volatility to remain elevated in the second half of 2022, which could help drive future opportunities for investors.
Given the upward movement of yields seen so far in 2022, fixed income markets currently offer higher levels of income that can help dampen downside risk for investors and have the potential to provide attractive total returns. As a result, we believe that future pockets of short-term market volatility can offer opportunities to reduce holdings of higher quality, liquid investments in favor of adding credit exposure; however, we will be patient and selective in doing so. We continue to favor issuers with strong carry potential, solid corporate profits and relatively low interest rate sensitivity and believe that increased volatility will help drive wider performance dispersion across sectors, industries and issuers.
In this environment, we believe that individual issuer selection will be key in seeking to deliver favorable performance for the remainder of 2022. We remain comfortable with corporate fundamentals, and while we expect the rate of defaults and losses to rise in the intermediate term we believe they should stay below their long-term averages.
With respect to interest rate risk, we expect an active Fed at each meeting for the rest of 2022 and have more modest expectations for rising nominal US Treasury rates following the significant increase seen in the first half of the year. We remain positioned shorter than broad market benchmarks from the perspective of duration and corresponding interest rate sensitivity to help minimize any negative performance impact from a further rise in interest rates. With the yield curve flattening experienced in 2022, short-dated maturity bonds currently offer favorable levels of income with potentially less volatility, without materially sacrificing yield relative to longer maturities.
Fund Summary | 41 |
While we remain cautious on our outlook, we continue to focus on seeking to deliver higher levels of income and total return potential over time. As economic and central bank developments continue to unfold, we remain focused on our investing framework, philosophy and strategy to guide us.
Water Island:
As we reach the halfway point of 2022, we reflect on a difficult period not just for broader capital markets but also for event-driven strategies. After reaching all-time highs at the start of 2022, the S&P 500 index—a popular proxy for the stock market—embarked on a downturn that officially entered bear market territory. The Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond index, which is reflective of the broad investment grade bond market, was down more than 10% year-to-date through June 30, extending a drawdown that began in 2020 and is now the largest bond market drawdown in more than 40 years. There has been no shortage of pressures driving the volatility: a pandemic that has now entered its third year; malfunctioning supply chains; runaway inflation; rapidly rising interest rates; recession fears; domestic discord and imminent midterm elections in the US; and geopolitical tensions and the Russia/Ukraine conflict have all played a part.
More pertinent to our event-driven strategies, volatility began to spike about a year ago, in June 2021, when the Department of Justice (DOJ) sued to block the merger of insurance brokers Willis Towers Watson and Aon—a large, widely held deal that had already acquired necessary regulatory approvals in all jurisdictions but the US. Since then, competition regulation has remained at the forefront of merger arbitrage investors’ minds, as the Biden administration takes an increasingly strict view of antitrust. The DOJ, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) are just a handful of a stable of global regulators—including the pro-consumer European Commission and the unpredictable State Administration for Market Regulation in China—whose views often must be properly assessed to predict deal success, and with US regulators now straying from historical precedent more frequently, deal spreads have been experiencing atypical spikes in volatility.
When the volatility within our strategy was met with broader capital market drawdowns, the impact was dramatic. Forced and panicked selling can often cause correlations to converge, and in late Q2 we saw spreads in our universe of announced mergers and acquisitions (M&A) gap wider, as arbitrageurs exited positions en masse—even in deals where there had been no change to the underlying fundamentals of the transaction. We have seen similar behavior before—for example, in the midst of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, and more recently at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the first quarter of 2020. That said, we view these movements as mere mark-to-market losses. We continue to have conviction that the vast majority of pending deals will reach a successful conclusion (as over 90% of announced M&A has done, historically, according to Dealogic data), at which point their spreads will narrow to zero and losses will reverse.
For the first six months of the year, our sleeve of the fund incurred losses in both its merger arbitrage investments and hard and soft catalyst special situations investments. The top detractor for the period was our position in the failed merger of Momentive Global and Zendesk. In October 2021, Zendesk—a US-based developer of software for customer support and customer communications—agreed to acquire Momentive Global—a US-based developer of software for conducting web-based surveys—for $4.1 billion in stock, after an activist investor in Momentive pushed for a sale process. In January, however, yet another activist investor—this time at Zendesk—began to push Zendesk’s board of directors and management to reject the acquisition, believing the company should instead be put up for sale itself. The very next month, Zendesk management rejected an offer from a private equity consortium that would have valued the company at $17 billion—yet Zendesk shareholders appear to have agreed with the activist, as they overwhelmingly rejected the Momentive deal mere days later. Subsequent share price volatility led to mark-to-market losses for the fund; however, we have maintained our Momentive exposure as not only has its activist reemerged, but the proxy background of the Zendesk merger indicated there were at least two other interested parties who put forth bids for the company before Zendesk won the initial sale process. We believe there is more left to this story.
Conversely, the top contributor in the portfolio was the fund’s investment in the merger of Xilinx and Advanced Micro Devices. In October 2020, Xilinx—a US-based semiconductor manufacturer—agreed to be acquired by local peer Advanced Micro Devices for $35.7 billion in stock. This transaction experienced ongoing volatility in the deal spread, in large part due to its lengthy timeline stemming from continued delays in receiving regulatory approval from China (a required condition to complete the deal, where antitrust reviews are a notoriously opaque process). The companies ultimately received approval from China in February 2022 and the merger subsequently closed successfully, leading to gains for the fund.
As we look ahead, with volatility extending throughout the credit and equity markets, we continue to believe merger arbitrage and other hard catalyst merger-related investments remain the appropriate area toward which to direct our focus. We anticipate M&A will remain an important avenue for corporations to drive growth, and we have no doubt dealmakers will adapt to model rising interest rates and high inflation into their valuations, fueling deal flow even if we enter a broader economic downturn. We also believe acquirers will continue to engage in M&A as a path to shore up weakened supply chains, diminished workforces, and inadequate technology infrastructure—common themes of the past year. Strategic acquirers in a position of strength can often find their best opportunities to deliver strong return on investment when valuations are dislocated, and deals with a strong strategic rationale can create long term value for shareholders. Lest we forget financial buyers, private equity (PE) acquisition activity—which now comprises nearly half of global deal value—should continue, as PE shops still have more than $2 trillion in dry powder on the books, waiting to be deployed. We intend to introduce select soft catalyst opportunities—which tend to be more sensitive to broader market moves—to the portfolio only with appropriate risk mitigation strategies in place.
42 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
As event-driven investors, our objective remains to generate returns sourced from the outcomes of idiosyncratic corporate events, rather than from the overall direction of broader credit or equity markets. We believe market volatility will remain heightened in the year ahead, but we are optimistic about the prospects for our strategies. Volatility can present opportunities to trade around positions and find attractive entry points. Furthermore, the risk-free interest rate is a fundamental building block of a deal spread, and rising interest rates have historically provided a tailwind to merger arbitrage returns. In this favorable environment, our goal, as always, remains to implement strong risk mitigation strategies as we seek to deliver non-correlated return streams with as little volatility as possible.
Sub-Advisor Portfolio Composition as of June 30, 2022
Blackstone Credit Systematic Group (DCI) Long-Short Credit Strategy
Bond Portfolio Top Five Sector Exposures
Energy |
14.7% | |||
Consumer Non-Discretionary |
11.7% | |||
Consumer Discretionary |
11.0% | |||
Materials |
9.1% | |||
Investment Vehicles/REITs |
8.2% |
CDS Portfolio Statistics
Long | Short | |||||||
Number of Issuers |
73 | 73 | ||||||
Average Credit Duration |
4.5 | 4.5 | ||||||
Spread |
255 bps | 244 bps |
DoubleLine Opportunistic Income Strategy
Sector Exposures
Cash |
10.9% | |||
Government |
3.5% | |||
Agency Inverse Interest-Only |
6.9% | |||
Agency CMO |
0.3% | |||
Agency PO |
0.3% | |||
Non-Agency Residential MBS |
33.2% | |||
Commercial MBS |
14.4% | |||
Collateralized Loan Obligations |
10.8% | |||
ABS |
5.6% | |||
Bank Loan |
5.8% | |||
Emerging Markets |
5.4% | |||
Other |
2.9% | |||
|
|
|||
TOTAL |
100.0% | |||
|
|
FPA Contrarian Opportunity Strategy
Asset Class Exposures
U.S. Stocks |
47.0% | |||
Foreign Stocks |
24.7% | |||
Bonds |
1.8% | |||
Limited Partnerships |
1.6% | |||
Cash |
24.9% | |||
|
|
|||
TOTAL |
100.0% | |||
|
|
Loomis Sayles Absolute Return Strategy
Strategy Exposures
Long Total | Short Total | Net Exposure | ||||||||||
Securitized |
29.4% | 0.0% | 29.4% | |||||||||
High-Yield Corporate |
26.2% | -0.7% | 25.6% | |||||||||
Investment-Grade Corp. |
17.4% | 0.0% | 17.4% | |||||||||
Dividend Equity |
10.0% | -0.7% | 9.4% | |||||||||
Emerging Market |
5.7% | -2.2% | 3.5% | |||||||||
Convertibles |
5.7% | 0.0% | 5.7% | |||||||||
Global Rates |
1.5% | 0.0% | 1.5% | |||||||||
Bank Loans |
0.4% | -0.2% | 0.2% | |||||||||
Global Credit |
0.3% | -0.3% | 0.0% | |||||||||
Subtotal |
96.7% | -4.1% | 92.6% | |||||||||
Cash & Equivalents |
6.3% | 0.0% | 6.3% |
Water Island Arbitrage and Event-Driven Strategy
Sub-Strategy Exposures
Long | Short | Net | ||||||||||
Merger Arbitrage – Equity |
91.7% | -2.0% | 89.7% | |||||||||
Merger Arbitrage – Credit |
2.9% | 0.0% | 2.9% | |||||||||
Total Merger-Related |
94.6% | -2.0% | 92.6% | |||||||||
Special Situations – Equity |
0.5% | 0.0% | 0.5% | |||||||||
Special Situations – Credit |
1.5% | 0.0% | 1.4% | |||||||||
Total Special Situations |
1.9% | 0.0% | 1.9% | |||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||
Total |
96.5% | -2.0% | 94.5% | |||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
Fund Summary | 43 |
iMGP Alternative Strategies Fund Managers
INVESTMENT MANAGER | FIRM | TARGET MANAGER ALLOCATION |
Strategy | |||
Stephen Kealhofer Paul Harrison Adam Dwinells |
Blackstone Credit/DCI, LLC | 19% | Long-Short Credit | |||
Jeffrey Gundlach Jeffrey Sherman |
DoubleLine Capital LP | 25% | Opportunistic Income | |||
Steven Romick Brian Selmo Mark Landecker |
First Pacific Advisors, LLC | 18% | Contrarian Opportunity | |||
Matt Eagan Brian Kennedy Elaine Stokes Todd Vandam |
Loomis Sayles & Company, LP | 19% | Absolute-Return | |||
John Orrico Todd Munn Roger Foltynowicz Gregg Loprete |
Water Island Capital, LLP | 19% | Arbitrage |
iMGP Alternative Strategies Fund Value of Hypothetical $100,000
The value of a hypothetical $100,000 investment in the iMGP Alternative Strategies Fund from September 30, 2011, 1996 to June 30, 2022 compared with the ICE BofA 3 Month Treasury Index and Morningstar Multistrategy Category
The hypothetical $100,000 investment at fund inception includes changes due to share price and reinvestment of dividends and capital gains. The chart does not imply future performance. Indexes are unmanaged, do not incur fees, expenses or taxes, and cannot be invested in directly.
Performance quoted does not include a deduction for taxes that a shareholder would pay on the redemption of fund shares.
44 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
iMGP Alternative Strategies Fund
SCHEDULE OF INVESTMENTS IN SECURITIES at June 30, 2022 (Unaudited)
Shares | Value | |||||||
COMMON STOCKS: 30.5% |
||||||||
Communication Services: 4.8% | ||||||||
131,856 | Activision Blizzard, Inc. | $ | 10,266,308 | |||||
3,896 | Alphabet, Inc. - Class A* | 8,490,397 | ||||||
2,733 | Alphabet, Inc. - Class C* | 5,978,301 | ||||||
84,001 | Altice USA, Inc. - Class A* | 777,009 | ||||||
33,347 | Baidu, Inc. - Class A* | 631,057 | ||||||
202,054 | Bollore SE | 934,919 | ||||||
11,701 | Charter Communications, Inc. - Class A* | 5,482,270 | ||||||
54,867 | Cineplex, Inc.* | 460,777 | ||||||
224,150 | Comcast Corp. - Class A | 8,795,646 | ||||||
114,390 | Escrow Altegrity, Inc.*(a) | 583,389 | ||||||
24,160 | iHeartMedia, Inc. - Class A* | 190,622 | ||||||
7,971 | Intelsat Emergence S.A.* | 215,217 | ||||||
31,687 | Meta Platforms, Inc. - Class A* | 5,109,529 | ||||||
8,836 | Netflix, Inc.* | 1,545,151 | ||||||
58,363 | Nexon Co. Ltd. | 1,194,874 | ||||||
2,898 | Nintendo Co. Ltd. | 1,253,259 | ||||||
19,071 | T-Mobile US, Inc.* | 2,565,812 | ||||||
331,213 | TEGNA, Inc.(b) | 6,945,537 | ||||||
95,329 | Twitter, Inc.* | 3,564,351 | ||||||
423,581 | Uniti Group Ltd.* | 1,439,015 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
66,423,440 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Consumer Discretionary: 2.5% | ||||||||
2,951 | Airbnb, Inc. - Class A* | 262,875 | ||||||
123,962 | Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.* | 1,767,681 | ||||||
48,160 | Amazon.com, Inc.* | 5,115,074 | ||||||
187 | Booking Holdings, Inc.* | 327,061 | ||||||
27,257 | CarMax, Inc.* | 2,466,213 | ||||||
4,305 | Carnival Corp.* | 37,238 | ||||||
19,900 | Cie Financiere Richemont S.A. - Class A | 2,117,598 | ||||||
16,544 | Delivery Hero SE*(c) | 619,504 | ||||||
94,760 | Entain Plc* | 1,435,003 | ||||||
11,361 | Flutter Entertainment Plc* | 1,139,234 | ||||||
776 | Home Depot, Inc. (The) | 212,834 | ||||||
46,340 | Just Eat Takeaway.com N.V.*(c) | 730,867 | ||||||
530 | LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE | 322,745 | ||||||
15,226 | Marriott International, Inc. - Class A* | 2,070,888 | ||||||
1,788 | McDonald’s Corp. | 441,422 | ||||||
329 | MercadoLibre, Inc.* | 209,530 | ||||||
2,525 | NIKE, Inc. - Class B | 258,055 | ||||||
4,011 | Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd.* | 44,602 | ||||||
70,869 | Prosus N.V. | 4,635,341 | ||||||
2,729 | Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.* | 95,269 | ||||||
7,656 | Starbucks Corp. | 584,842 | ||||||
228,170 | Tenneco, Inc. - Class A* | 3,915,397 | ||||||
54,491 | Terminix Global Holdings, Inc.* | 2,215,059 | ||||||
1,559,745 | Vivo Energy Plc(c) | 2,769,905 | ||||||
1,845 | Wynn Resorts Ltd.* | 105,128 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
33,899,365 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Consumer Staples: 1.0% | ||||||||
15,012 | Coca-Cola Co. (The) | 944,405 | ||||||
1,243 | Estee Lauder Cos., Inc. (The) - Class A | 316,555 | ||||||
28,086 | Herbalife Nutrition Ltd.* | 574,359 | ||||||
119,500 | JDE Peet’s N.V. | 3,397,676 | ||||||
6,874 | Procter & Gamble Co. (The) | 988,412 | ||||||
22,397 | Sanderson Farms, Inc. | 4,827,225 | ||||||
132,577 | Swedish Match AB | 1,349,134 |
Shares | Value | |||||||
Consumer Staples (continued) | ||||||||
5,176 | Walmart, Inc. | $ | 629,298 | |||||
|
|
|||||||
13,027,064 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Energy: 0.3% | ||||||||
18,829 | Battalion Oil Corp.* | 160,611 | ||||||
17,596 | California Resources Corp. | 677,446 | ||||||
8,225 | Gulfport Energy Corp.* | 653,970 | ||||||
155,610 | Kinder Morgan, Inc. | 2,608,023 | ||||||
1,258 | Pioneer Natural Resources Co. | 280,635 | ||||||
7,419 | Williams Cos., Inc. (The) | 231,547 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
4,612,232 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Financials: 4.2% | ||||||||
12,475 | Alleghany Corp.* | 10,392,922 | ||||||
560 | Alpha Partners Technology Merger Corp.* | 5,482 | ||||||
128,235 | American International Group, Inc. | 6,556,656 | ||||||
12,743 | Angel Pond Holdings Corp. - Class A* | 125,327 | ||||||
19,191 | Aon Plc - Class A | 5,175,429 | ||||||
2,792 | Apollo Strategic Growth Capital II* | 27,515 | ||||||
5,085 | Atlantic Coastal Acquisition Corp. II* | 50,748 | ||||||
68,106 | Avanti Acquisition Corp.* | 678,676 | ||||||
568 | BlackRock, Inc. | 345,935 | ||||||
280,770 | Brewin Dolphin Holdings Plc | 1,748,554 | ||||||
14,913 | BurTech Acquisition Corp.* | 149,950 | ||||||
3,884 | C5 Acquisition Corp.* | 38,801 | ||||||
105,610 | Citigroup, Inc. | 4,857,004 | ||||||
67,864 | Contra Zogenix, Inc. | 47,566 | ||||||
4,507 | COVA Acquisition Corp. - Class A* | 44,304 | ||||||
60,800 | Fast Sponsor Capital*(a) | 60,800 | ||||||
292,982 | First Horizon Corp.(b) | 6,404,587 | ||||||
58,037 | Groupe Bruxelles Lambert S.A. | 4,841,039 | ||||||
7 | GSR II Meteora Acquisition Corp.* | 71 | ||||||
12,520 | Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. (The) | 819,184 | ||||||
77,470 | Jefferies Financial Group, Inc. | 2,139,721 | ||||||
8,893 | LPL Financial Holdings, Inc. | 1,640,581 | ||||||
14,054 | Macondray Capital Acquisition Corp. I* | 139,275 | ||||||
7,468 | Metals Acquisition Corp. - Class A* | 73,112 | ||||||
320,179 | Moneylion, Inc.* | 422,636 | ||||||
3,350 | Morgan Stanley | 254,801 | ||||||
6,266 | Pershing Square Tontine Holdings Ltd. - Class A* | 125,132 | ||||||
776 | PowerUp Acquisition Corp.* | 7,830 | ||||||
85,548 | Sanne Group Plc* | 942,750 | ||||||
1,174 | Signature Bank | 210,393 | ||||||
1,763 | Silver Spike Acquisition Corp. II - Class A* | 17,269 | ||||||
117,140 | Wells Fargo & Co. | 4,588,374 | ||||||
19,850 | Willis Towers Watson Plc | 3,918,191 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
56,850,615 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Health Care: 2.9% | ||||||||
2,082 | Abbott Laboratories | 226,209 | ||||||
2,926 | AbbVie, Inc. | 448,146 | ||||||
22,209 | Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding Co. Ltd.*(b) | 3,236,073 | ||||||
3,869 | Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. | 297,913 | ||||||
531,651 | Change Healthcare, Inc.* | 12,259,872 | ||||||
155,642 | Covetrus, Inc.* | 3,229,572 | ||||||
462 | Elevance Health, Inc. | 222,952 | ||||||
85,639 | Inovalon Holdings, Inc. - Class A* | 3,618,248 | ||||||
6,413 | Johnson & Johnson | 1,138,372 |
The accompanying notes are an integral part of these financial statements.
Schedule of Investments | 45 |
iMGP Alternative Strategies Fund
SCHEDULE OF INVESTMENTS IN SECURITIES at June 30, 2022 (Unaudited) (Continued)
Shares | Value | |||||||
COMMON STOCKS (CONTINUED) |
||||||||
Health Care (continued) | ||||||||
35,075 | LHC Group, Inc.* | $ | 5,462,580 | |||||
5,619 | Merck & Co., Inc. | 512,284 | ||||||
50,092 | Natus Medical, Inc.* | 1,641,515 | ||||||
97,766 | Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB* | 2,111,991 | ||||||
270 | Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. | 146,686 | ||||||
41,342 | Turning Point Therapeutics, Inc.* | 3,110,986 | ||||||
339 | UnitedHealth Group, Inc. | 174,121 | ||||||
20,451 | UpHealth, Inc.* | 12,117 | ||||||
12,855 | Vifor Pharma AG* | 2,227,168 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
40,076,805 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Industrials: 4.2% | ||||||||
108,170 | Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc.* | 4,391,702 | ||||||
77,763 | Atlantia SpA | 1,821,870 | ||||||
207,910 | Cornerstone Building Brands, Inc.* | 5,091,716 | ||||||
1,105 | Cummins, Inc. | 213,851 | ||||||
3,695 | CWT Travel Group, Inc. | 73,900 | ||||||
722 | Deere & Co. | 216,217 | ||||||
3,415 | Expeditors International of Washington, Inc. | 332,826 | ||||||
13,540 | Ferguson Plc | 1,499,013 | ||||||
75,543 | HomeServe Plc | 1,076,912 | ||||||
1 | Hornbeck Offshore Services, Inc. | 10 | ||||||
105,955 | Howmet Aerospace, Inc. | 3,332,285 | ||||||
130,915 | Intertrust N.V.*(c) | 2,623,105 | ||||||
217 | L3Harris Technologies, Inc. | 52,449 | ||||||
45,628 | LG Corp. | 2,737,539 | ||||||
896 | Lockheed Martin Corp. | 385,244 | ||||||
25,696 | ManTech International Corp. - Class A | 2,452,683 | ||||||
565,707 | McDermott International Ltd.* | 321,850 | ||||||
590,897 | McDermott International Ltd.* | 336,811 | ||||||
341,452 | Nielsen Holdings Plc | 7,928,515 | ||||||
42,919 | Rush Enterprises, Inc. - Class A | 2,068,696 | ||||||
27,722 | Safran S.A. | 2,734,046 | ||||||
20,938 | Samsung C&T Corp. | 1,983,498 | ||||||
51,080 | Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy S.A.* | 957,703 | ||||||
17,500 | Sound Holding FP Luxemburg*(a) | 1,859,991 | ||||||
52,416 | Uber Technologies, Inc.* | 1,072,431 | ||||||
1,416 | Union Pacific Corp. | 302,005 | ||||||
1,633 | United Parcel Service, Inc. - Class B | 298,088 | ||||||
57,500 | Univar Solutions, Inc.* | 1,430,025 | ||||||
319,101 | Welbilt, Inc.* | 7,597,795 | ||||||
31,520 | Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corp. | 2,587,162 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
57,779,938 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Information Technology: 6.8% | ||||||||
965 | Accenture Plc - Class A | 267,932 | ||||||
48,690 | Analog Devices, Inc. | 7,113,122 | ||||||
5,579 | Apple, Inc. | 762,761 | ||||||
2,262 | Applied Materials, Inc. | 205,797 | ||||||
832 | Autodesk, Inc.* | 143,071 | ||||||
204,898 | Avast Plc(c) | 1,288,507 | ||||||
14,183 | Black Knight, Inc.*(b) | 927,426 | ||||||
12,702 | Broadcom, Inc. | 6,170,759 | ||||||
28,844 | CDK Global, Inc. | 1,579,786 | ||||||
6,461 | Cisco Systems, Inc. | 275,497 | ||||||
68,273 | Citrix Systems, Inc. | 6,634,087 |
Shares | Value | |||||||
Information Technology (continued) | ||||||||
454,075 | Ideagen Plc | $ | 1,927,576 | |||||
321 | KLA Corp. | 102,425 | ||||||
91,341 | Magnachip Semiconductor Corp.* | 1,327,185 | ||||||
417,761 | Mandiant, Inc.*(b) | 9,115,545 | ||||||
1,300 | MasterCard, Inc. - Class A | 410,124 | ||||||
3,636 | Microchip Technology, Inc. | 211,179 | ||||||
1,363 | Microsoft Corp. | 350,059 | ||||||
336,781 | Momentive Global, Inc.* | 2,963,673 | ||||||
1,376 | NVIDIA Corp. | 208,588 | ||||||
14,376 | NXP Semiconductors N.V. | 2,128,079 | ||||||
70,530 | Open Text Corp. | 2,668,855 | ||||||
934 | PayPal Holdings, Inc.* | 65,231 | ||||||
172,800 | Plantronics, Inc.* | 6,856,704 | ||||||
4,094 | Qualcomm, Inc. | 522,968 | ||||||
24,822 | Rogers Corp.* | 6,505,598 | ||||||
87,230 | Sailpoint Technologies Holdings, Inc.* | 5,467,576 | ||||||
1,100 | salesforce.com, Inc.* | 181,544 | ||||||
15,047 | Silicon Motion Technology Corp. - ADR(b) | 1,259,434 | ||||||
124,433 | Switch, Inc. - Class A | 4,168,505 | ||||||
55,961 | TE Connectivity Ltd. | 6,331,987 | ||||||
2,151 | Visa, Inc. - Class A | 423,510 | ||||||
23,050 | VMware, Inc. - Class A* | 2,627,239 | ||||||
344,512 | Vonage Holdings Corp.* | 6,490,606 | ||||||
68,228 | Zendesk, Inc.* | 5,053,648 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
92,736,583 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Materials: 1.3% | ||||||||
225,306 | Cemex SAB de C.V. - ADR* | 883,200 | ||||||
946,357 | Glencore Plc | 5,123,551 | ||||||
29,950 | HeidelbergCement AG | 1,437,228 | ||||||
164,687 | Holcim AG | 7,042,621 | ||||||
30,262 | International Flavors & Fragrances, Inc. | 3,604,809 | ||||||
4,442 | Newmont Corp. | 265,054 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
18,356,463 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Real Estate: 0.7% | ||||||||
72,130 | American Campus Communities, Inc. - REIT | 4,650,221 | ||||||
1,366 | American Tower Corp. - REIT | 349,136 | ||||||
61,924 | Deutsche EuroShop AG | 1,439,118 | ||||||
31,812 | Duke Realty Corp. - REIT | 1,748,069 | ||||||
297,322 | Swire Pacific Ltd. - Class A | 1,771,308 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
9,957,852 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies: 0.3% | ||||||||
25 | Accelerate Acquisition Corp.* | 245 | ||||||
2,368 | African Gold Acquisition Corp.* | 23,372 | ||||||
13,096 | Agile Growth Corp.* | 128,799 | ||||||
6,668 | Ares Acquisition Corp.* | 65,747 | ||||||
16,681 | Atlantic Coastal Acquisition Corp. - Class A* | 163,140 | ||||||
11,288 | Broadscale Acquisition Corp. - Class A* | 110,848 | ||||||
8,316 | Churchill Capital Corp. VII* | 81,913 | ||||||
13,902 | Colonnade Acquisition Corp. II* | 136,240 | ||||||
7,012 | DHC Acquisition Corp.* | 68,648 | ||||||
972 | Digital Transformation Opportunities Corp.* | 9,487 | ||||||
13,902 | Disruptive Acquisition Corp. I* | 136,935 | ||||||
2 | ESM Acquisition Corp.* | 20 | ||||||
13,902 | Flame Acquisition Corp.* | 137,074 | ||||||
16,730 | Forest Road Acquisition Corp. II* | 163,954 | ||||||
6,664 | Fortress Value Acquisition Corp. IV* | 65,041 |
The accompanying notes are an integral part of these financial statements.
46 | Litman Gregory Funds Trust |
iMGP Alternative Strategies Fund
SCHEDULE OF INVESTMENTS IN SECURITIES at June 30, 2022 (Unaudited) (Continued)
Shares | Value | |||||||
COMMON STOCKS (CONTINUED) |
||||||||
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (continued) | ||||||||
1,678 | FTAC Hera Acquisition Corp.* | $ | 16,587 | |||||
2,338 | Fusion Acquisition Corp. II* | 22,901 | ||||||
13,945 | Glenfarne Merger Corp.* | 139,868 | ||||||
5,221 | Global Partner Acquisition Corp. II* | 51,557 | ||||||
13,902 | Golden Arrow Merger Corp.* | 135,823 | ||||||
65 | Gores Holdings VII, Inc.* | 638 | ||||||
3,177 | Gores Holdings VIII, Inc. - Class A* | 31,293 | ||||||
88 | Gores Technology Partners II, Inc.* | 867 | ||||||
8,746 | GX Acquisition Corp. II - Class A* | 85,623 | ||||||
16,773 | Hudson Executive Investment Corp. III* | 164,375 | ||||||
11,615 | InterPrivate IV InfraTech Partners, Inc.* | 114,292 | ||||||
13,902 | Kismet Acquisition Three Corp.* | 135,962 | ||||||
16,705 | Landcadia Holdings IV, Inc.* | 164,294 | ||||||
506 | Lazard Growth Acquisition Corp. I* | 4,979 | ||||||
1,510 | Lead Edge Growth Opportunities Ltd.* | 14,881 | ||||||
10,143 | Mason Industrial Technology, Inc.* | 99,452 | ||||||
8,259 | Mission Advancement Corp.* | 80,690 | ||||||
940 | Monument Circle Acquisition Corp.* | 9,240 | ||||||
7,430 | Northern Star Investment Corp. III* | 73,297 | ||||||
5,739 | Northern Star Investment Corp. IV* | 56,443 | ||||||
3,367 | Orion Acquisition Corp.* | 33,030 | ||||||
7,873 | Peridot Acquisition Corp. II* | 77,155 | ||||||
13,031 | Pine Technology Acquisition Corp. - Class A* | 127,313 | ||||||
13,079 | Plum Acquisition Corp. I* | 128,305 | ||||||
3,118 | Ross Acquisition Corp. II* | 30,743 | ||||||
133 | RXR Acquisition Corp.* | 1,310 | ||||||
9,637 | Slam Corp.* | 95,117 | ||||||
9,063 | Stratim Cloud Acquisition Corp.* | 88,591 | ||||||
1,601 | TCW Special Purpose Acquisition Corp.* | 15,738 | ||||||
3,992 | Tio Tech A* | 39,261 | ||||||
16,730 | TLG Acquisition One Corp.* | 164,121 | ||||||
13,335 | Twelve Seas Investment Co. II* | 130,950 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
3,626,159 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Utilities: 1.5% | ||||||||
28,145 | Albioma S.A. | 1,469,644 | ||||||
8,935 | Duke Energy Corp. | 957,921 | ||||||
73,324 | FirstEnergy Corp. | 2,814,908 | ||||||
4,694 | NextEra Energy, Inc. | 363,597 | ||||||
200,775 | PG&E Corp.* | 2,003,735 | ||||||
136,935 | PNM Resources, Inc.(b) | 6,542,754 | ||||||
178,658 | South Jersey Industries, Inc.(b) | 6,099,384 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
20,251,943 | ||||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
TOTAL
COMMON STOCKS |
417,598,459 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
RIGHTS/WARRANTS: 0.0% |
||||||||
4,247 |
Angel Pond Holdings Corp. (Expiration date 12/31/27)* |
1,805 | ||||||
5,560 |
Atlantic Coastal Acquisition Corp. (Expiration date 12/31/27)* |
445 | ||||||
3,595 |
BigBear.ai Holdings, Inc. (Expiration date 12/31/28)* |
1,438 | ||||||
24 |
Biote Corp. (Expiration date 02/12/27)* |
9 | ||||||
2,822 |
Broadscale Acquisition Corp. (Expiration date 02/02/26)* |
668 |
Shares | Value | |||||||
64,680 |
Cie Financiere Richemont S.A. (Expiration date 11/22/23)* |
$ | 35,209 | |||||
2,253 |
COVA Acquisition Corp. (Expiration date 12/31/27)* |
226 | ||||||
397 |
Gores Holdings VIII, Inc. (Expiration date 12/31/27)* |
241 | ||||||
2,915 |
GX Acquisition Corp. II (Expiration date 12/31/28)* |
495 | ||||||
1,333 |
Heliogen, Inc. (Expiration date 03/31/28)* |
351 | ||||||
389 |
Hornbeck Offshore SRVC, Inc. (Expiration date 04/09/30)* |
0 | ||||||
11 |
Hornbeck Offshore SRVC, Inc. (Expiration date 04/09/30)* |
106 | ||||||
834 |
Intelsat Jackson Holdings S. A. (Expiration date 12/05/25)* |
3,128 | ||||||
834 |
Intelsat Jackson Holdings S. A. (Expiration date 12/05/25)* |
3,336 | ||||||
2,489 |
Metals Acquisition Corp. (Expiration date 07/12/26)* |
1,258 | ||||||
4,343 |
Pine Technology Acquisition Corp. (Expiration date 03/31/28)* |
353 | ||||||
145 |
Prenetics Global Ltd. (Expiration date 12/31/26)* |
43 | ||||||
440 |
Silver Spike Acquisition Corp. II (Expiration date 02/26/26)* |
26 | ||||||
367 |
Swvl Holdings Corp. (Expiration date 03/31/27)* |
201 | ||||||
2,045 |
UpHealth, Inc. (Expiration date 07/01/24)* |
143 | ||||||
1,275 |
Virgin Orbit Holdings, Inc. (Expiration date 12/29/26)* |
737 | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
|