SAM's investment process comprises three steps culminating in the construction of the model portfolio:

I. Screening of an initial universe to identify a shortlist of potentially attractive stock ideas.
II. Fundamental analysis of these companies to ascertain whether they meet the required quality criteria.
III. Valuation of the companies' future dividend streams in relation to their current market prices.

The valuation stage of our process sets a minimum real return hurdle of 5%. The dividend discount model considers a stock undervalued and a potential purchase if its current dividend yield plus real dividend growth exceeds 5% per annum. Thus research operates on an absolute, rather than relative, return basis.

SAM's investment philosophy and process have been in place since the inception of the firm. Whilst little has changed since that time and no major changes are expected in the future, SAM's investment team continuously attempts to refine and improve the process of identifying attractively priced, high quality companies. SAM's explicit cap on its future asset size assures that the research programme will never be compromised by growth. This ensures flexibility for research to invest fully across the geographic and capitalization spectrums.