Pax World Launches Value Fund
Sujatha Avutu Joins Firm as Senior Portfolio Manager
Click here to view an interview with Sujatha Avutu, Pax World Value Fund Manager
PORTSMOUTH, NH - September 27, 2007 - Pax World Management Corp., investment adviser to Pax World Funds (“Pax”), which launched the nation’s first socially responsible mutual fund in 1971, today announced that it has added a new fund, the Pax World Value Fund, to its family of mutual fund offerings.
The Pax World Value Fund is led by portfolio manager Sujatha R. Avutu, CFA, who recently joined Pax World from Evergreen Investment Management where she was a managing director and lead portfolio manager of the Evergreen Equity Income Fund. Under her direction, the Pax World Value Fund will seek to achieve long-term capital appreciation by investing primarily in large-cap companies that the investment adviser believes are undervalued relative to their future growth prospects in relation to the market and their respective industry groups. Such companies also must meet Pax World’s sustainable investing criteria, including positive environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance. Ms. Avutu joined Pax World in July as senior vice president and senior portfolio manager.
“We are thrilled to welcome Sujatha Avutu to Pax as she takes the helm of the new Pax World Value Fund,” said Joe Keefe, Pax World’s president and chief executive officer. “Sujatha brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in the field of value investing, as well as a profound commitment to the goals of sustainable investing. We believe our investors will benefit from the way this Fund attempts to integrate rigorous environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria with an equally rigorous value investing discipline in pursuit of long-term growth.”
“We believe that applying sustainable investing criteria to the value space can help us identify more forward-thinking, progressive companies that are undervalued relative to their future growth potential,” says Ms. Avutu. “By integrating ESG factors with fundamental analysis, we believe these investment opportunities exist even in traditionally problematic sectors such as materials, industrials, energy and utilities.”
According to Ms. Avutu, the Fund will follow a “contrarian value” approach that seeks “to buy great businesses at good prices and good businesses at great prices.” In addition to investing in financially sound companies with positive dividend growth that are trading at a discount relative to intrinsic vales, the Fund will invest in “good companies that may have been unduly punished by the market because the sector or style is out of favor.”
Prior to serving as a fund manager for Evergreen, Ms. Avutu worked as an equity analyst for Victory Capital Management where she was responsible for fundamental research and investment recommendations in the insurance, electric utility and natural gas sectors. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst and a member of the Boston Security Analysts Society. Ms. Avutu earned her MBA from Miami University in Ohio.
For more information, contact Brendon Buckley 617.933.5021 or Cosabeth Bullock 617.933.5277.