that may apply for the periods indicated above
under “Fees and Expenses.” Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or
“turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs. These costs, which are not reflected in Annual Fund Operating
Expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund’s performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 62.79% of the average value of its
portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
Under normal conditions, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in equity securities issued by mid-cap companies. For
these purposes, mid-cap companies are those with market capitalizations similar to those of companies included in the Russell MidCap® Index. The
Fund employs a “value” style of investing, which means investing in equity securities that the Fund’s subadviser believes to be trading at prices that do not
reflect a company’s intrinsic value. Companies issuing such securities may be currently out of favor, undervalued due to market declines, or experiencing poor operating
conditions that the subadviser believes to be temporary. The Fund may invest in stocks of mid-cap companies that are located outside the United States. It may invest in any economic sector and, at times, emphasize one or more particular sectors.
The subadviser invests in companies that it believes to be of high quality based on criteria
such as market share position, profitability, balance sheet strength, competitive advantages, management competence and the ability to generate excess cash flow. The subadviser uses a bottom-up investment process in conducting fundamental analysis to identify companies that have
sustainable returns trading below the subadviser’s assessment of intrinsic value and prospects for an inflection in business fundamentals that will enable the stock price to be revalued higher. The subadviser may sell a security if it believes the stock has reached its fair value estimate, if a more attractive opportunity is identified, or if the fundamentals of the company deteriorate.
The Fund cannot guarantee that it will achieve its investment objective.
As with any fund, the value of the Fund’s investments—and therefore, the value of Fund shares—may fluctuate. These changes may occur because of:
Equity securities risk – stock markets are volatile. The price of an equity
security fluctuates based on changes in a company’s financial condition and overall market and economic conditions.
Market risk – the risk that one or more markets in which the Fund invests will go down in value, including the possibility that the
markets will go down sharply and unpredictably. This occurs due to numerous factors, including interest rates, the outlook for corporate profits, the health of the national and world economies, and the fluctuation of other securities markets around the
world. These risks may be magnified if certain social, political, economic and other conditions and events (such as natural disasters, epidemics and pandemics, terrorism, conflicts, trade disputes and social unrest or rapid technological developments
such as artificial intelligence) adversely interrupt the global economy.
Selection risk – the risk that the securities
selected by the Fund’s subadviser will underperform the markets, the relevant indexes or the securities selected by other funds with similar investment objectives and
investment strategies.
Mid-cap
risk – medium-sized companies are usually less stable in price and less liquid than larger, more established companies. Therefore, they generally involve greater risk.
Value style risk – value investing carries the risk that the market will not
recognize a security’s intrinsic value for a long time or that a stock judged to be undervalued actually is appropriately priced. In addition, value stocks as a group
sometimes are out of favor and underperform the overall equity market for long periods while the market concentrates on other types of stocks, such as “growth” stocks.