Your Portfolio Our Approach Investment Selection Internal Strategies Manager Access Alternative Investments

Our Approach

Diversification

We believe the best way to control risk across portfolios is through broad diversification among asset classes, investment strategies and styles. No single asset class exhibits the best performance over all time horizons, and using a single asset class portfolio enhances the risk of a significant loss of capital from which recovery can take years. In our opinion, these eight asset categories constitute the core building blocks of a diversified investment portfolio:

  • Investment-Grade Bonds
  • Large Cap Stocks
  • Mid-Cap Stocks
  • Small Cap Stocks
  • International Stocks
  • Alternative Investments (where appropriate):
    • Hedge Funds
    • Private Equity
    • Real Estate

Atlantic Trust carefully selects investments from proprietary or external offerings in a full array of asset classes. Within asset classes, we generally favor diversified strategies to control security-specific risk. We are clearly in favor of active investment management versus passive. Manager selection is a core competency of our firm, through which we believe we can drive incremental value on a relatively consistent basis.

Strategic, Not Tactical

Our focus in asset allocation is strategic and incremental, not tactical and dramatic. We do not chase returns or attempt to outsmart the market over short periods of time. Given the general efficiency of the capital markets, we are willing to be early in order to add value over the longer term.

Relative Value

We think we can add significant value by identifying asset classes where relative over- and under-valuation exist. We invariably favor reasoned judgment over any type of optimization model or analytics in reaching our asset allocation conclusions. However, we do believe optimization tools can provide a quantitative framework that helps challenge our assumptions and discipline our conclusions.

Access to a Full Array of Asset Classes

This chart is as of September 30,2008, and is a generalization of asset classes. Many of the sub-asset classes would appear in different positions on the risk/reward chart.