Approach

The investment philosophy of our Equity Dividend Plus Portfolio recognizes and emphasizes the historical significance of dividend yield to investor total return. By utilizing a relative dividend yield discipline coupled with fundamental research focusing on historical valuation metrics and comprehensive business analysis, we construct a diversified portfolio of securities providing above-average dividend streams and potential for capital appreciation. Our investment philosophy melds above-average dividend yield, traditional value manager equity selection and a conservative covered call option writing strategy. The objective of the portfolio is to provide high dividend yields, a growing cash flow stream and competitive total returns.

Flippin, Bruce & Porter employs a value-based, bottom-up, large-cap, fundamental, equity approach with decisions made by looking beyond current investor emotion, discounting Wall Street expectations, and relating historical financial company characteristics to current price. History shows that over ten-year time periods large domestic corporations go through periods of being in favor and out of favor. With this belief as a backdrop, our discipline identifies securities that are trading at the lower end of their historical ranges. We also employ a well-defined, systematic, fundamental analysis that identifies catalysts which we believe will cause fundamentals to improve. By combining solid value and improving fundamentals, coupled with judging investment sentiment, we believe our process will yield successful results.