International Value [[{“value”:”
Our International Value Equity strategy returned 13.8% in 2023, underperforming the EAFE and EAFE Value in a calendar year for the first time in our history. It was a frustrating year considering our underperformance was driven by multiple compression and market-cap factors, not fundamentals. In fact, as detailed below, our companies generated better earnings results this year than the indices.
Our approach to focusing on value stocks with strong earnings growth leaves us looking very different than our benchmark, with about a 98% active share. By owning cheap companies with attractive growth, we expect to deliver above-market returns over time. Over short periods, however, looking different than the benchmark can hurt performance. This year, for example, most of our underperformance came from our lack of exposure to the largest-cap stocks in Europe.
With more earnings growth and less stock price return in 2023, the relative valuation gap between our stocks and the EAFE widened to levels we’ve rarely seen since inception, with the portfolio now having more than 75% upside to our estimate of intrinsic value. We believe this sets us up for significant outperformance in the future.”}]]
