Harbor Global Value Fund Institutional Class (HAGVX)

Investment Philosophy

Principal Style Characteristics: Companies throughout the world exhibiting strong value characteristics on a relative basis

The Fund invests primarily in equity securities, principally common stocks of companies located throughout the world, including the United States and developed and emerging market countries. Companies in the Fund's portfolio normally have market capitalizations in excess of $2 billion at the time of purchase.

The Subadviser employs a deep value based investment approach by seeking to identify companies that the Subadviser believes are undervalued relative to their long-term earnings power. In selecting securities for the Fund's portfolio, the Subadviser first uses a quantitative screening process to rank U.S. and foreign companies from the least to most expensive on the basis of their global price-to-normalized earnings ratios. The Subadviser then researches those companies identified as least expensive utilizing fundamental and qualitative analysis to determine whether the problems that caused the company's earnings shortfall are temporary or permanent. The Subadviser selects individual securities for investment only when it believes:

  • The company's problems are temporary
  • Management has a viable strategy to generate earnings recovery
  • There is meaningful downside protection in case the earnings recovery does not materialize.

The Fund normally sells a security when the Subadviser determines the company stock has reached its target price, the Subadviser determines there are more attractive investment opportunities before the stock reaches its target price, there is a material adverse change in the company's business or the Subadviser's expectations of the company's earnings growth appear unlikely to be met.

Under normal market conditions, the Fund invests in approximately 40 to 60 companies that are economically tied to a minimum of five countries, one of which may be the U.S. The Fund does not have pre-set targets for investment in any particular country or region. Depending on the Subadviser's assessment of the relative value of the companies identified for potential investment, the Fund may at one time invest all or substantially all of its assets in foreign companies and at another time invest substantially in U.S. companies, although it is expected that there will normally be meaningful foreign company exposure in the portfolio. Emerging market exposure is limited to 25% of the Fund's total assets, determined at the time of purchase.

Risks

There is no guarantee that the investment objective of the Fund will be achieved. An investment in the Fund is not a bank deposit and is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other government agency. Stocks fluctuate in price and the value of your investment in the Fund may go down. This means that you could lose money on your investment in the Fund or the Fund may not perform as well as other possible investments. Principal risks include:

Market risk: The individual stocks in which the Fund has invested or overall stock markets in which they trade may decline in value. Additionally, an adverse event, such as an unfavorable earnings report, may depress the value of a particular company's stock.

Value style risk: Over time, a value oriented investing style may go in and out of favor, which may cause the Fund to sometimes underperform other equity funds that use different investing styles.

Selection risk: The Subadviser's judgment about the attractiveness, value and potential appreciation of a particular company's stock could be incorrect.

Foreign securities risk: The Fund invests primarily in securities of foreign companies. Because of this, there is a greater risk that the Fund's share price will fluctuate more than if the Fund invested in domestic issuers. Foreign issuers are sometimes less liquid and harder to value than securities of U.S. issuers. In addition, foreign brokerage and custodian fees may be higher than those in the U.S. Prices of foreign securities may go down and the Fund may lose money as a result of the following:

  • Unfavorable foreign government actions, such as excessive taxation or currency controls; political, economic or market instability; or the absence of accurate information about foreign companies due in part to different financial accounting and regulatory standards.
  • A decline in the value of foreign currencies relative to the U.S. dollar may reduce the unhedged value of securities denominated in those currencies.

Emerging market risk: The foreign securities risks are more significant for issuers in emerging market countries such as those in Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Pacific Basin. Additional risks include immature economic structure and less developed and more thinly-traded securities markets.

Smaller cap risk: The Fund's performance may be more volatile because it may invest in smaller cap stocks. Smaller companies may have limited product lines, market and financial resources. They are usually less stable in price and less liquid than those of larger, more established companies.

Concentration risk: Because the Fund typically invests in approximately 40 to 60 companies, an adverse event affecting a particular company may hurt the Fund's performance more than if it had invested in a larger number of companies.