The Fund invests substantially all of its total assets in the component securities of the AJN Shareholders First Equity Index (the “Index”). The Fund uses a “passive” or indexing approach to try to achieve its investment objective. Unlike many investment companies, the Fund does not try to “beat” the Index and does not seek temporary defensive positions when markets decline or appear overvalued. 

The Fund uses a full replication strategy. A full replication strategy is an indexing strategy that involves investing in the securities of the Index in approximately the same proportions as in the Index. However, the Fund may utilize a representative sampling strategy with respect to the Index when a replication strategy might be detrimental to shareholders, such as when there are practical difficulties or substantial costs involved in compiling a portfolio of equity securities to follow the Index, in instances in which a security in the Index becomes temporarily illiquid, unavailable, or less liquid, or as a result of legal restrictions or limitations (such as tax diversification requirements) that apply to the Fund but not the Index.

The AJN Shareholders First Equity Index

The Index was developed by AJN Corporation (the “Index Provider”) and is designed to track the performance of a portfolio of the common stocks of U.S. companies that, in the opinion of the Index Provider, focus on a mission to enhance shareholder value without such distractions including but not limited to taking political stances or conforming to a greater social goal of “stakeholder capitalism.” The Index is based on the premise that companies that are politically neutral are more focused on generating profits and returns for shareholders and are better positioned to outperform in most market environments than companies that engage in political or social activism (whether liberal or conservative). The Index methodology seeks to identify politically neutral companies in the Index Universe (as defined below) for further consideration as an Index constituent. In making this determination, the Index Provider evaluates the quality, quantity, type, and extent of a company’s political and social activism, considering information on corporate donations, advocacy, stated policies, amounts spent on political and lobbying activities, and company policies on political and social activism. This information is obtained by the Index Provider from sources it believes to be reliable, including: Form 990s, the IRS electronic filing database, official company websites, official company annual reports, news publications, keyword Internet searches, and other sources. The Index Provider may consider various factors in determining the credibility of its sources, including review of the author’s credentials, references and citations, peer review, and cross verification, and may also consider the purpose and intent, language and tone, consistency, and funding of information sources. Indications of any politically motivated actions (i.e. those that the Index Provider believes to be driven by political or social objectives rather than to increase profits or shareholder value) based on the above research eliminates a company from being eligible for inclusion in the Index.

The initial universe of the Index constituents (the “Index Universe”) consists of the largest 900 companies ranked by market capitalization that are actively traded common stocks of U.S. companies listed on an eligible U.S. exchange.  A stock is considered “actively traded” if the company files annual reports on Form 10-K and has a primary listing on the NYSE or Nasdaq. The Index Provider then filters the Index Universe to identify companies that have the best scores for their focus on creating shareholder value using a proprietary scoring system based on the factors and sources of information discussed above. Simultaneously, the Index Provider uses a proprietary quantitative financial metric scoring methodology to separately filter the Index Universe. These financial metrics, which are computed based on each security’s average over the previous quarter, are: (1) one-year price performance; (2) five-year price performance; (3) closing price; (4) cash; (5) revenue; (6) debt to equity ratio; (7) average dividend yield; (8) profit margin; and (9) market capitalization. To calculate these averages, the sum of the value of each financial metric for each day of the preceding quarter is divided by the number of days in the quarter. The weightings of these financial metrics are adjusted based upon the Index Provider’s assessment of whether the current monetary policy environment is “restrictive” or “expansive,” which is determined by changes to the Federal Reserve discount rate. The resulting sets of filtered companies are then ranked to create one index portfolio of the companies with the highest shareholder value creation scores and the highest quantitative financial metric scores. The final Index consists of the common stocks of 50 companies.

The Index uses score weighted approach. The Index is rebalanced and reconstituted on the last business day of the quarter.  In the event that a company that is an Index constituent engages in activity between quarterly rebalancing and reconstitution dates that the Index Provider believes is not “politically neutral,” that company will remain in the Index until the next quarterly Index rebalancing date. At that time, the Index Provider would evaluate any changes to the company’s political and social activism and, if warranted, the company would be removed and replaced by a company that meets the inclusion criteria. In the event that an Index constituent no longer trades between quarterly rebalancing and reconstitution dates as the result of a corporate restructuring, merger or similar event, the Index Provider will remove the Index constituent from the Index and rebalance the Index as of the date that the Index constituent is removed. The Fund is rebalanced and reconstituted in accordance with changes in the Index. 

The Index is calculated, maintained and distributed by the Index Provider, an independent, third-party index calculation agent that is not affiliated with the Fund or the Adviser.  The Index Provider is not affiliated with the Adviser and the Index has been licensed to the Adviser. 

The Fund is a diversified fund, but may be focused on certain sectors from time to time to the same extent the Index is focused including the consumer discretionary, industrials, and technology sectors.