The Fund invests primarily in common stocks of large capitalization companies that demonstrate a consistent pattern of earnings and dividend growth. Crawford Investment Counsel, Inc. (the “Adviser”) utilizes a bottom-up approach to stock selection, focusing on company fundamentals. The Adviser seeks high quality companies with strong balance sheets, predictable earnings and cash flow growth, and a history of dividend growth. The Adviser’s goal is to identify companies that the Adviser believes have market prices that do not reflect their true values and that have above-average total return potential.

The Adviser’s investment discipline is value-oriented and emphasizes fundamental research and long-term decision making. When selecting portfolio companies, the Adviser’s research process starts with a universe of companies that have at least a ten-year history of paying and/or growing dividends. The Adviser then selects a portfolio of companies that it believes are undervalued and present an attractive trade-off between risk and return. The Adviser seeks to buy high quality securities at attractive valuations and to identify a catalyst that is expected to produce attractive returns.

Under normal circumstances, the Fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in securities of large cap companies that pay or are expected to pay regular dividends. The Adviser considers large cap companies to be companies that, at the time of investment, have market capitalizations within the range of market capitalization of the companies appearing in the Russell 1000® Value Index (the “Index”). As of December 31, 2023, the market capitalization of the companies appearing in the Index ranged from approximately $270 million to $773 billion. The Fund may invest its assets in securities of U.S. companies and foreign companies, directly or indirectly through American Depositary Receipts (“ADRs”) or other types of depositary receipts. The Fund may also invest in equity real estate investment trusts (“REITs”).

The Fund may at times overweight certain economic sectors in comparison to the Index because the Adviser seeks the best investment opportunities regardless of sector. The Adviser generally purchases securities for the long-term. As a result, the Adviser believes the Fund will have low turnover, which should help minimize short-term capital gains and postpone long-term capital gains. However, when the Adviser deems that changes will benefit the Fund, portfolio turnover will not be a limiting factor.

The Fund may sell a security when the Adviser believes that the company’s fundamentals have deteriorated, if the company decreases its dividends, or if the stock has become overvalued in the opinion of the Adviser. The Fund also may sell a security when the Adviser believes that a better investment opportunity is present.