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Fund Overview: Objective, Strategy and Holdings

  • The Multiple Asset Fund I-Series seeks to maximize long-term investment returns, including current income and capital appreciation, while reducing short-term risk by investing in a broad mix of investments.
  • Holds a pre-specific allocation of units of the following Wespath fund: Fixed Income Fund-I Series (FIF-I), Inflation Protection Fund-I Series (IPF-I), International Equity Fund-I Series (IEF-I), and U.S. Equity Fund-I Series (USEF-I).

Fund Managers

The following individuals are responsible for the selection and monitoring of external asset managers:

Dave Zellner image

David H. Zellner

Chief Investment Officer

  • With Wespath since 1997
  • Co-authored the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI)
  • B.S. in finance from Louisiana State University
  • MBA from the University of Houston
Susan Chung image

Susan Chung, CFA 

Managing Director, Investment Management

  • With Wespath since 2018
  • B.A. from the University of Chicago
  • MBA from the Booth Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago
  • CFA Charterholder

Management

The Multiple Asset Fund-I Series (MAF-I), through its investment in the four other Wespath Institutional Investments funds, participates in the management styles of more than 35 different investment management firms. These managers provide the fund with broad diversification of holdings in a variety of U.S. and non-U.S. securities. These include stocks, traditional bonds, inflation-linked bonds, real estate investment trusts, securities, commodities, and interests in private equity and private real estate partnerships. In addition, through FIF-I, MAF-I holds participation interests in loans originated through the Positive Social Purpose Lending Program.

Please refer to the Investment Funds Description – I Series for a detailed description of the investment strategies used in managing the Fund.

* The Multiple Asset Fund-I Series performance benchmark is a blended benchmark comprised of 35% Russell 3000 Index, 30% MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI) ex-USA Investable Market Index (IMI), 25% Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Universal Index ex-Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) and 10% IPF-I performance benchmark. The IPF-I performance benchmark consists of a blended benchmark comprised of 80% Bloomberg Barclays World Government Inflation Linked Bond Index (Hedged), 10% Bloomberg Barclays Emerging Market Tradeable Inflation Linked Bond Index (Unhedged) and 10% Bloomberg Commodity Index.

Fund Snapshot
Inception January 1, 2019
Exp. Ratio 0.57% for 2019 (Estimated)
Benchmark MAF-I Benchmark*
Fund Assets $1,330 Million as of December 31, 2019
Holdings Holdings as of September 30, 2019
Unit Price History I Series Price History
For More Information Summary Fund Descriptions - I Series and Investment Funds Description - I Series and the related Statement of Additional Information.

Related Fund Performance

The Fund commenced operations on January 1, 2019 and, as a result, performance information for the Fund is not presented herein. The information in the charts below does not represent the performance of the Fund. The Fund is advised by the Fund Manager. The Fund Manager is related to UMC Benefit Board, Inc., which serves as the adviser to the Fixed Income Fund (the “Related Fund”). The Related Fund is managed, and has historically been managed, with substantially similar investment styles, objectives, policies, and strategies to those that are used to manage the Fund. The Adviser and the adviser to the Related Fund are part of the overall Wespath organization and rely on certain Wespath Benefits and Investments shared employees, including internal fund managers, and substantially similar sub advisers to execute substantially similar investment strategies on behalf of different categories of investors.

The Fund is providing this related performance information because of the similarities between the Fund and the Related Fund. This information may be helpful in evaluating the Fund’s risks by demonstrating how the Related Fund has performed historically. The performance of the Related Fund is not the performance of the Fund. Future performance of the Fund may be better or worse than the performance of the Related Fund. Factors that could affect performance differences between the Fund and the Related Fund include, but are not limited to, portfolio composition, size of the portfolio, fees, expenses and the timing of cash flow.

Related Fund Performance, Net of Fees (as of 12/31/2019 )

  3 mo YTD 1 yr 3 yr 5 yr 10 yr
Multiple Asset Fund 6.58% 21.08% 21.08% 10.27% 7.21% 8.34%
MAF Benchmark4 5.88% 20.78% 20.78% 9.73% 7.29% 8.50%

Universal Comparison

Multiple Asset Fund-I Series vs. Peer Group Universe

Peer Group Performance Comparison

Peer group performance comparison

Annualized Performance (Gross-of-Fees)

  YTD 1 Year 3 Year 5 Year 10 Year
Multiple Asset Fund 14.1% 4.1% 8.6% 6.8% 8.7%
Median 12.8% 5.1% 8.1% 6.5% 8.2%
Rank in Universe 36th 67th 29th 41st 33rd
# of Observations 497 488 454 421 339

Peer Group Performance Comparison and Annualized Performance (Gross-of-Fees) data as of September 30, 2019.

Source: BNY Mellon. The adjacent chart represents the range of investment returns for the BNY Mellon Master Trust Universe (Universe) total fund composites. BNY Mellon provides a fund-level tracking service used to compare the Multipole Asset Fund's actual gross-of-fees performance to the performance of similar asset pools of other institutional investors. The universe includes corporate, foundation, endowment, public, Taft-Hartley and health care plans.

See Risk and Disclosures for more information regarding Net of Fees Performance.

Footnotes

The performance shown is for the stated time period only. Historical returns are not indicative of future performance. Differences in timing of transactions and market conditions prevailing at the time of investment could lead to different results. The past performance of the Related Fund is presented net of fees – that is, with the deduction of external investment management fees, custody fees, and administrative and operating expenses. The inception date of the Related Fund was May 1, 2002. The investments of the Related Fund may vary substantially from those in the Fund benchmark. The benchmark is based on broad-based securities market indices, which are unmanaged and are not subject to fees and expenses typically associated with investment funds. Investors cannot invest directly in the index used as the Fund benchmark.

4 The Related Fund performance benchmark is 35% Russell 3000 Index, 30% MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI) ex-USA Investable Market Index (IMI), 25% Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Universal Index ex-Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) and 10% Inflation Protection Composite benchmark, effective January 1, 2017. The Inflation Protection Composite benchmark consists of 80% Bloomberg Barclays World Government Inflation Linked Bond Index (Hedged), 10% Bloomberg Barclays Emerging Market Tradeable Inflation Linked Bond Index (Unhedged) and 10% Bloomberg Commodity Index.

Allocations

Fund Allocations as of September 30, 2019

MAF-I Fund Allocations

Fund Allocations* Target Range Actual
U.S. Equity Fund-I Series (USEF-I) 32%-38% 35.4%
International Equity Fund-I Series (IEF-I) 27%-33% 29.2%
Fixed Income Fund-I Series (FIF-I) 22%-28% 25.3%
Inflation Protection Fund-I Series (IPF-I) 7%-13% 9.9%
Cash 0%-2% 0.3%

* As of September 30, 2019. Future asset allocations may be different than those stated above.

During aberant market conditions, WII may temporarily elect to suspend rebalancing back to the pre-specified mix. WII will resume rebalancing once market conditions have improved. MAF-I residual cash is invested in the Short Term Investment Fund - I Series (STIF-I).

Risks & Disclosures

All investments carry some degree of risk that will effect the value of the Fund's holdings, its investment performance and the price of its units. As a result, loss of money is a risk of investing in the Fund. MAF-I is subject to the following principal investment risks: market risk, investment style risk, security-specific risk, credit risk, country risk, currency risk, deflation risk, derivatives risk, interest rate risk, and liquidity risk.

Historical returns are not indicative of future performance. For further discussion of the Fund's investments strategies and risks, please refer to "Principal Investment Strategies and Principal Investment Risks of the Funds - Multiple Asset Fund I-Series" in the Investment Funds Description - I Series, as well as the web pages for the four underlying funds. This is not an offer to purchase securities.

Lending of Portfolio Securities

The fund seeks to earn additional income bylending a portion of its portfolio securities to brokers, dealers and other financial institutions. The loans are secured at all times by cash and liquid high-grade debt obligations. As with any extension of credit, there are risks of delay in recovery and in some cases even loss of rights in the collateral should the borrower fail financially. In addition, losses could result from the reinvestment of the cash collateral received on loaned securities.

Expense Ratio

The estimated expense ratio set forth above is based on projected asset balances, fees and expenses, and various other assumptions. There is no guaranted that the Fund's actual expense ratio will match this estimate. The fund expense ratio may vary depending on, among other things, market events, portfolio size, transaction costs, timing of Fund inflows and outflows, and applicable third party fees.

All fees and expenses of the Fund are deducted from the Fund's net asset value. The fees and expenses paid by the Fund include external investment management fees paid to subadvisors, and the fund's prorated portion of the bank custodial fees and administrative and overhead expenses incurred by the overall Wespath Benefits and Investments (WBI) organization in connection with providing investment, operating and administrative support to the Fund and other funds, and the cost of WBI's and it's subsidiaries' other activities and operations. These expenses are paid directly by the Fund, and are reflected in the unit price calculated for the Fund. The unit price is multipolied by the number of units held in each client's account to determine the total value of the client's holdings in the Fund. More information about the calculation of these fees and expenses is available in the definition of Expense Ratio set forth in the Glossary of Terms of the Investment Funds Description - I Series.