CNS AR24 Digital - Book - Page 21
strategies including lease-up, redevelopment, and development among others and have a higher risk profile. Investment
objectives include stable cash flow and capital appreciation, income and total return.
Preferred Securities, including Low Duration Preferred Securities invests in diversified portfolios of preferred, debt and
contingent convertible securities issued by U.S. and non-U.S. companies. The securities are primarily issued by banks,
insurance companies, REITs and other diversified financial institutions, as well as utility, energy, pipeline and
telecommunications companies. A consistent investment process underlies both our total return preferred securities strategy
and our low duration preferred securities strategy, both of which seek income and capital preservation.
Global Listed Infrastructure includes strategies designed to provide access to infrastructure assets. These strategies have
diversified and concentrated portfolios of U.S. and non-U.S. securities issued by infrastructure companies such as utilities,
pipelines, toll roads, airports, railroads, marine ports and communications companies located in developed and emerging
markets, energy related master limited partnerships and securities of companies that derive at least 50% of their revenues or
operating income from the exploration, production, transportation, processing, storage, refining, distributing or marketing of
various energy resources. Investment objectives include total return with a balance of capital appreciation and income.
Global Natural Resource Equities invests in companies involved in the production, extraction, or processing of
commodities and natural resources. Specifically, the strategy invests in energy producers, metals and mining companies as
well as agriculture-based businesses. The investment objective is total return.
Real Assets Multi-Strategy invests in a diversified multi-strategy portfolio of listed companies and securities that generally
own or are backed by tangible real assets, including real estate securities, global listed infrastructure, commodity futures and
natural resource equities, with the objective of achieving attractive total returns over the long term, while providing
diversification and maximizing the potential for real returns in periods of rising inflation.
We offer other niche strategies for client-specific mandates or through various investment structures. In addition, we
offer variations that may combine multiple strategies in a single portfolio. Individual portfolios may be customized to comply
with client-specific guidelines, benchmarks or risk profiles.
Competition
We compete with several global and U.S. investment managers, commercial banks, broker-dealers, insurance
companies and other financial institutions. Many competing firms are parts of larger financial services companies and attract
business through numerous channels, including retail banking, investment banking and underwriting contacts, insurance
agencies and broker-dealers.
Our direct competitors in wealth management are other fund and ETF sponsors, including large nationally recognized
investment management firms that have more diverse product offerings and smaller boutique firms that specialize in
particular asset classes. We also compete against managers that manage separate account portfolios for high net worth clients.
In the institutional channel, we compete with several investment managers offering similar products and services, from
boutique establishments to major commercial and investment banks.
Performance, price and brand are our principal sources of competition. Prospective clients will typically base their
decisions to invest, or continue to invest, with us on our ability to generate returns in excess of a benchmark and the cost of
doing so. We are evaluated based on our performance and our fees relative to our competitors. In addition, individual fund
shareholders may also base their decision on the ability to access the funds we manage through a particular distribution
channel.
As interest in real assets continues to increase, we may face increased competition from other managers that are
competing for the same client base that we target and serve. Financial intermediaries that offer our products to their clients
may also offer competing products. Many of our competitors have greater brand name recognition and more extensive client
bases than we do, which could be to our disadvantage. In addition, our larger competitors have more resources and may have
more capacity to expand their product offerings and distribution channels and capture market share through ongoing business
relationships and extensive marketing efforts. However, compared to our larger competitors, we may be able to grow our
business at a faster rate from a relatively smaller asset base and shift resources in response to changing market conditions
more quickly.
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