Pear Tree Polaris Foreign Value Small Cap Fund (QUSOX / QUSIX)

Portfolio Management
The Pear Tree Polaris Foreign Value Small Cap Fund is subadvised by Polaris Capital Management and has been managed by Bernie Horn and Sumanta Biswas since inception in 2008. Polaris Capital Management, LLC is a Boston-based money manager specializing in global and international equity portfolio management.

Investment Process
Polaris employs an unconstrained pure value equity selection process that is characterized as an active, all-capitalization investment approach. The firm is a deep value manager whose professionals believe that the best way to generate above-average, risk-adjusted returns is to wait for market fluctuations to produce undervalued companies that trade at a significant discount to their future expected cash flows. The Pear Tree Polaris Foreign Value Small Cap Fund provides investors with the opportunity to participate in the growth potential of small cap companies located in foreign countries.  A small cap company is defined as having a market capitalization from $250 million to $2 billion.

Portfolio Construction
The Fund will generally own approximately 75 non-U.S. companies located in countries comprising the S&P EPAC small cap Index.  In addition, the Fund may also invest a portion of its assets in emerging markets.  The Fund’s investment process generally leads the Fund investing in 15 or more foreign markets and 15 or more industries. The country and industry diversification helps reduce the likelihood that negative performance of a single country or industry will significantly impact the Fund’s return.

Disclosure

- Foreign Exposure. Foreign markets, particularly emerging markets, can be more volatile than the U.S. market due to increased risks of adverse issuer, political, regulatory, market, or economic developments and can perform differently from the U.S. market. Emerging markets can be subject to greater social, economic, regulatory, and political uncertainties and can be extremely volatile.
- Small Cap Investing. The value of securities of smaller, less well-known issuers can perform differently from the market as a whole and other types of stocks and can be more volatile than that of larger issuers.