Under normal circumstances, the Fund invests at least 80% of its assets (net assets plus any borrowings for investment purposes) in fixed income securities of issuers in emerging markets. An issuer of a security is considered to be an emerging market issuer based on the issuer’s “country of risk” (or similar designation) as determined by a third-party such as Bloomberg. Candriam, the Fund’s Subadvisor, has discretion to determine the countries considered to be emerging market countries, including taking into consideration a variety of factors such as the development of a country’s financial and capital markets and inclusion in an index, such as the J.P. Morgan Emerging Market Bond Index, considered by the Subadvisor to be representative of emerging markets.

The securities in which the Fund invests may be denominated in foreign currency. The debt securities in which the Fund invests may consist of securities that are rated below investment grade. Below investment grade securities are generally securities that receive low ratings from a nationally recognized statistical rating organization (“NRSRO”) (such as securities rated lower than BBB- and Baa3), or if unrated, are deemed to be of comparable quality by the Subadvisor. Securities rated below investment grade by a NRSRO are commonly referred to as “high yield securities” or “junk bonds.” If NRSROs assign different ratings to the same security, the Fund will use the higher rating for purposes of determining the security's credit quality. The Fund may invest in fixed income securities of any duration or maturity.

The Fund's principal investments include sovereign, quasi-sovereign and corporate Eurobonds. The Fund may invest in floating rate notes and inverse floating rate notes. The Fund may also invest in derivative instruments, such as forward commitments, futures, options and swap agreements to try to enhance returns or reduce the risk of loss by hedging certain of its holdings. The Fund may invest up to 20% of its total assets in swaps, including credit default swaps and credit default swap indices. The Fund may buy and sell currency on a spot basis, buy foreign currency options, and enter into foreign currency forward contracts. These techniques may be used for any purpose, including to seek to increase the Fund's return.

Investment Process: The Subadvisor identifies investment opportunities by deploying a relative value focused investment approach. The approach consists of three primary layers of analysis. The first layer assesses medium-term sovereign creditworthiness and sets up the basis for identifying the second and third layer investment opportunities, which are relative country (second layer) and instrument (third layer) investment opportunities. The Subadvisor also considers key fundamental macro-economic drivers such as growth and inflation dynamics, internal and external imbalances as well as structural reform and political risk trends. The investment approach is aware of environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) risks as ESG factors are explicitly integrated in the sovereign creditworthiness analysis. The Subadvisor may avoid investments in sovereign or corporate issuers where the combination of fundamental and ESG risks are not appropriately reflected in valuations.

In addition, the Subadvisor implements a Controversial Activity Exclusion policy related to companies and industries involved with the production of coal, tobacco products, chemical, biological or white phosphorus weapons, and gambling.

The Subadvisor may sell a security if it believes the security will no longer contribute to meeting the investment objective of the Fund.