Investment Strategy:
The Fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (“ETF”) that seeks to achieve its investment objective by investing in the equity securities of mid-capitalization companies (i.e., companies with market capitalizations in the range of the Russell MidCap® Index) that the Sub-Adviser (Argent Capital Management LLC) believes are high quality, enduring businesses. Under normal circumstances, the Sub-Adviser expects the Fund will invest at least 80% of its net assets (plus any borrowings for investment purposes) in mid-capitalization companies. The Fund will generally hold 40 to 50 stocks of mid-capitalization companies that have daily trading volume of at least $8 million. While it is anticipated that the Fund will invest across a range of industries, certain sectors may be overweighted compared to others because the Sub-Adviser seeks best investment opportunities regardless of sector. The sectors in which the Fund may be overweighted will vary at different points in the economic cycle.The Sub-Adviser utilizes a multi-step process that is based in part on a bottom-up fundamental investment research process and a quantitative screening process which is described as the “Argent Alpha Model”. The qualitative research and analysis performed by the Sub-Adviser emphasizes identifying good businesses and seeks to identify overlooked and under-appreciated companies in the Fund’s investment universe while the quantitative process is designed to identify incremental changes in a company’s fundamentals and outperforming factors within the sectors in which a company operates. The Argent Alpha Model will analyze quantitative measures such as return on invested capital, cash flow return on investment, revenue and earnings results, as it seeks to identify incremental improvements at the company level. The Sub-Adviser believes that good businesses are those that exhibit above average profitability, generate above-average cash flow and have management teams that are good stewards of capital, amongst other factors.The investment process initially consists of approximately 1,500 companies with market capitalizations in the range of the Russell MidCap® Index ($364 million to $93 billion). These companies are screened for market liquidity with only those companies with a daily trading volume of $8 million or more making it to the next step of the investment process (approximately 1,200 companies). Next, the Sub-Adviser segregates the remaining companies into traditional sectors for further analysis. Stocks are then screened by the Sub-Adviser’s proprietary quantitative tool, the Argent Alpha Model. The Argent Alpha Model is a dynamic, 25 factor tool that ranks stocks from 1 to 10 via factors that are grouped into four main categories. The factors are categorized in groups for research reasons as those within each group tend to correlate with each other more than they correlate with the other groups. The four factor categories in the Argent Alpha Model are the following:ValueValue factors measure whether a stock is rich or cheap compared to other stocks in its sector. An example of a value factor in the Argent Alpha Model is price to free cash flow. Value factors tend to work best during those periods characterized as “value” markets.GrowthGrowth factors measure how fast a stock’s sales, earnings and cash flows are growing relative to other stocks in their sector. An example of a growth factor in the Argent Alpha Model is the Sub-Advisor’s proprietary measure of unexpected cash flow from operations which identifies companies generating a higher cash flow from operations than in the past. Growth factors tend to work best during those periods characterized as “growth” markets.QualityQuality factors measure the quality of a company’s earnings, balance sheet and stewardship of capital. An example of a quality factor in the Argent Alpha Model is cash flow return on assets. Quality factors tend to work best during those periods characterized as “quality” markets.StabilityThe stability factors exhibit low correlation to each other and low correlation to the factors in the other three groups. An example of a stability factor in the Argent Alpha Model is a ratio of a company’s balance sheet cash to its market cap. The Sub-Adviser looks for companies that can evolve and thrive in changing business environments which it believes helps moderate downside risk. These companies tend to have above-average returns on capital, sustainable business models, and sustainable competitive advantages. Companies that make it through this diligent, fundamental analysis are what the Sub-Adviser considers to be high quality, enduring businesses.Proprietary analysis is performed to identify outperforming factors from the Argent Alpha Model in each sector. The investment process is bottoms-up and focuses on individual stocks from the investment universe that meet our investment criteria. Sector allocation is an artifact of the bottoms-up process. Companies within each sector with positive exposure to the outperforming factors are eligible to move on to the next step in the investment process. Additional proprietary analysis is performed to identify those stocks that historically outperform when the Argent Alpha Model ranks them as a buy candidate. Approximately 120 companies make it through this portion of our selection process.The remaining companies are then segregated into “current market” and “future market” segments, based upon internal analysis that determines whether or not a company is best positioned to outperform in the current market cycle or a future market cycle (the “Market Cycle Model”). The Sub-Adviser’s Market Cycle Model seeks to balance the Fund’s portfolio between securities that are believed to provide both current growth opportunities as well as future market conditions (i.e., value investment opportunities).Companies are generally purchased at approximately a 2% weight in the Fund and can grow to a cap of approximately 8%. All stocks in the portfolio are continually monitored, but overall model changes generally occur monthly. Model changes may occur more frequently when major events such as public health crises, geopolitical events such as war or terrorism, trade disputes, economic shocks, amongst others are believed by the Sub-Adviser to likely have an impact on the Fund’s portfolio. The Sub-Adviser’s sell discipline is guided by the same process used to originally screen the investment universe. The Sub-Adviser will generally sell an investment if fundamentals supporting the stock’s value deteriorate, the quantitative screening process indicates prospects for the investment have deteriorated or when a better investment opportunity becomes available. The Sub-Adviser does not anticipate high portfolio turnover as it seeks to invest in these companies for the long term.