DEEP RESEARCH FUND

DEEP RESEARCH FUND – Insights

Get more insights into our investment strategy and philosophy

Learn more about critical aspects of our investment process such as why our investment process starts with equity screening, how we deal with mistakes or how we break down the fund’s return into its drivers.

Voting Policy

Active ownership is a key component of our investment strategy. In this insight, we would like to explain how we think about exercising our voting rights and present a short summary of our internal voting guidelines. While by no means exhaustive, this insight also aims to shed light on the challenges arising from unique voting proposals and how we approach them.

Integration of sustainability into our research process

The Deep Research Fund’s objective is to generate a return for its clients by carefully selecting and investing in companies that can withstand difficult times, are managed with the long-term view in mind, and comply with high sustainability standards. To implement these sustainability standards, we systematically integrate our sustainability concerns in all parts of our investment process.

Approach to Exclusions at the Deep Research Fund

In this insight, we would like to introduce the types of exclusions we implement in our research process. Most of them are based on our sustainability criteria and create hard limits on what we consider an acceptable portfolio company. Others are based on past encounters with particular issues, circle of competence or industry-specific considerations. This document explains our thinking and details the rules behind the exclusions as well as their result. In the conclusion, we use the example of our screening process to illustrate how exclusions reduce our research universe from close to 100’000 companies to less than half.

How do we work in Sustainability?

What does Sustainability mean to us? Sustainability has been part of our investment process since the early days of the company’s founding. At that time, we simply believed that it was the right thing to do; just like every team-member tried to lead their lives in a socially-conscious and environmentally-friendly way, we believed we should invest in companies that lead their corporate existence with a similar philosophy.

Return Breakdown

Most portfolio returns are broken down into the three components capital gain, dividend payment and movement in the foreign exchange rate. We developed a method to drill deeper and attribute returns to its true origination such as the expansion of a business, margin improvement, smart buying and selling or simply the cash earned by a company. In this insights report, we provide you with an understanding of our detailed return analysis.