Overview

Investment Objective
The Fund seeks to capture the performance of Australia's Sustainability Leaders. SAM believes that, over time, these companies will outperform the broader Australian equity market.

The Selection Process
Drawing on a selection universe of Australia's 200 largest listed companies, that meet liquidity requirements and have a primary listing on the Australian Stock Exchange, SAM analysts seek to identify the companies that, in terms of their sustainability performance, belong to the top third (approximately) in their industry.

The portfolio construction and maintenance rules are similar to those developed by SAM for the DJSI World. A number of parameters were changed in order to select the top third (approximately) of the leading sustainability companies in each industry. The assessment and rebalancing cycle is in line with the DJSI World in order to best use the information about the larger Australian companies that overlap the two universes. An additional rule was introduced to control the concentration of the Fund's investment into very large capitalisation stocks. The rules are modified from time to time to refine the selection process.

The 2002 universe creation, portfolio construction and sustainability selection process results in a universe with 21 industry sectors, 200 potential members and 68 sustainability leaders. The universe and portfolio are highlighted in this table, disaggregated by the 21 SAM Australia sustainability industry sectors (portfolio members, i.e. sustainability leaders, are in yellow).