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Wasatch Micro Cap Growth – U.S. Strategy

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Wasatch Micro Cap Growth – U.S. Strategy
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Strategy Overview

Highlights
  • Capitalize on an inefficient, alpha-rich segment of the market
  • Truly active, fundamental, bottom-up investment approach
  • Blend of high growth, core growth, and fallen angel micro-cap stocks
Investment Approach

We use a bottom-up approach that seeks to identify companies with outstanding long-term growth potential. We look for the following types of companies:

  • High growth: companies with minimum annual earnings growth of 20%
  • Core growth: high-quality, stable growing companies
  • Fallen angels: growth companies that have suffered a temporary setback

Primarily invests in companies with market caps of less than $1.5 billion at the time of purchase

Approximately 50-80 positions

Portfolio Managers
Ken Korngiebel Ken Korngiebel Lead Portfolio Manager
3 years on strategy
5 years at wasatch
Quick Look
As of 12/31/20
Total Assets*
$1,278M
Mutual Fund
$1,209M
Separate Accounts
$68.4M
Inception Date
06/19/95
Account Minimum
$1m
Primary Benchmark
Russell Microcap® Index

*Total strategy assets across all vehicles and composites

Documents
Fact Sheet
Commentary
3 Cumulative PM years on strategy

The micro-cap universe is big, diverse and less efficient—a great place for stock picking. Our extensive experience in this universe is critical in our search for future stars.”

—Ken Korngiebel, Lead Portfolio Manager

Performance

Average Annual Total Returns AS OF 12/31/20 AS OF 01/31/21
Quarter-End Month-end
1 Month
3 Month
ytd
1 yr
3 yr
5 yr
10 yr
Micro Cap Growth - U.S. Composite (Gross)
4.19%
33.54%
4.19%
64.00%
35.81%
33.46%
19.86%
Micro Cap Growth - U.S. Composite (Net)
4.19%
33.22%
4.19%
62.36%
34.10%
31.74%
18.26%
Russell Microcap® Index
14.22%
48.15%
14.22%
44.91%
12.79%
17.44%
12.15%
Russell 2000® Index
5.03%
35.15%
5.03%
30.17%
11.11%
16.50%
11.78%

Returns for periods less than one year are not annualized.

Calendar Year Returns (%) NET OF FEES (AS OF 12/31/20)
U.S. Micro Cap Growth Composite
Russell Microcap® Index

Performance is preliminary and subject to change. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Wasatch Global Investors is an independent registered investment advisor. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Wasatch claims compliance with the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS®). GIPS® is a registered trademark of CFA Institute. CFA Institute does not endorse or promote this organization, nor does it warrant the accuracy or quality of content contained herein. To receive a complete list of composite descriptions of Wasatch composites and/or a GIPS Composite Report, e-mail inforequest@wasatchglobal.com. The U.S. Dollar is the currency used to express performance.

The Micro Cap Growth-U.S. Composite contains fully discretionary equity accounts following the Micro Cap Growth–U.S. style.  The composite primarily invests in growing micro cap companies with the goal of long-term growth of capital.  Income is an objective only when consistent with long-term growth of capital.  The strategy prohibits investments in securities that trade on foreign exchanges.  For comparison purposes the composite is measured against the Russell Microcap TR and Russell 2000 TR indices.

The Russell Microcap TR Index is an unmanaged total return index of the smallest 1,000 securities in the small cap Russell 2000 Index and the next smallest 1,000 companies based on a ranking of U.S. equities by market capitalization.

The Russell 2000 TR Index represents the smallest 2,000 companies in the Russell 3000 Index, ranked by total market capitalization.

All rights in the Russell Indexes vest in the relevant London Stock Exchange Group plc (collectively, the “LSE Group”), which owns these indexes. Russell® is a trademark(s) of the relevant LSE Group company and is used by any other LSE Group company under license. These indexes are calculated by or on behalf of FTSE International Limited or its affiliate, agent or partner. The LSE Group does not accept any liability whatsoever to any person arising out of (a) the use of, reliance on or any error in the Index or (b) investment in or operation of the Fund or Separate Account. The LSE Group makes no claim, prediction, warranty or representation either as to the results to be obtained from the Fund or Separate Account or the suitability of these indexes for the purpose to which they are being put by Wasatch Global Investors.

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Portfolio

Characteristics AS OF 12/31/20
Portfolio
Index
Number of Holdings
65
1321
Average Market Cap
($ Weighted)
$2.00B
$836M
Median Market Cap
$1.40B
$266M
EPS Growth (%, est. 5 yr)
22
18
P/E (Forward)
35
14
Portfolio Turnover (%)
82.46
N/A
Active Share (%)
96
N/A
Performance Statistics AS OF 12/31/20
5 yr
Alpha
16.09
Beta
0.91
R-Squared
0.84
Standard Deviation
22.72
Upside Capture
139
Downside Capture
72
Top 10 Holdings AS OF 12/31/20
Company
% of Net Assets
Kornit Digital Ltd. (Israel)
3%
Open Lending Corp.- CL A
2.6%
Castle Biosciences Inc.
2.6%
PAR Technology Corp.
2.5%
Freshpet Inc.
2.4%
GenMark Diagnostics Inc.
2.3%
Pennant Group Inc/The
2.3%
Purple Innovation Inc.
2.2%
Upland Software Inc.
2.2%
XPEL Inc.
2.1%
65 Number of holdings
96% Active share
Sector Allocation AS OF 12/31/20
Sector
Portfolio
Index
Health Care
28.7
27.4
Information Technology
21.1
12.2
Consumer Discretionary
18.6
14.9
Industrials
16.6
12.0
Consumer Staples
4.6
2.0
Financials
3.7
18.7
Communication Services
2.1
3.0
Cash & Cash Equivalents*
1.8
0.0
Materials
1.4
2.9
Energy
1.3
2.8
Real Estate
0.0
3.5
Utilities
0.0
0.7
Country Allocation AS OF 12/31/20
Portfolio (%)
Developed
98.2
United States
90.4
Israel
6.5
United Kingdom
1.3
90.4% United States

Country weights are calculated as a percentage of total portfolio including cash & cash equivalents.

Commentary & Literature

Commentary
Fact Sheet
News & Updates

Wasatch Micro Cap Fund to Close to New Investors

January 15, 2021

Wasatch Global Investors announced today that effective at 4:00 p.m. ET on…

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Barron’s – Finding Quality in Tiny Stocks

December 2, 2020

The past 10 years in equity markets have been the story of…

Read More >

Financial Advisor Magazine – Little Companies, Big Chops

August 12, 2020

Financial Advisor Magazine recently featured Ken Korngiebel and the Wasatch Micro Cap…

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Business Insider – The Manager of the Best Small-Cap Fund of the Past 20 Years Explains Why He’s Betting Big on a Consumer Recovery

April 28, 2020

Business Insider recently featured Ken Korngiebel and the Wasatch Micro Cap Fund.

Read More >

Important Disclosures

Portfolio Characteristics, Allocations and Top Ten Holdings are derived from a representative account.

Est. 5-year EPS Growth %: Estimated percentage increase in earnings per share (EPS) per year of the fund's holdings over the next 5 years. Returns are not guaranteed and may be higher or lower. Source: Wasatch and FactSet. P/E Ratio (forward and trailing): Sum of stock prices of the fund's holdings divided by the aggregate earnings per share of those holdings for the next 12 months (forward), or past 12 months (trailing), calculated as a weighted harmonic average. P/E to Growth Rate: Forward 12-month P/E ratio divided by the estimated 5-year EPS growth rate. Portfolios with a number less than 1.0 would be considered undervalued, around 1.0 would be considered fair valued and significantly greater than 1.0 would be considered overvalued. Weighted Average Market Cap: Average market capitalization of companies held by the fund, weighted by their percentage of fund net assets. Portfolio Turnover: A measure of trading activity in a fund's portfolio over the past 12 months expressed as a percentage of the fund's average total assets. Alpha measures a fund's risk/reward potential. A positive alpha means the fund outperformed the index. A negative alpha means the fund underperformed the index. Beta measures a fund's risk in relation to the market. A beta of 0.8 means the fund's total return is likely to move up or down 80% of the market change; 1.25 means total return is likely to move up or down 25% more than the market. R-Squared measures (from 0 to 1.0) how closely a fund's movements are correlated with movements of its benchmark. An R-squared of 1.0 would mean that the fund's movements are completely correlated with the movements of its benchmark. Active Share measures the difference between portfolio holdings and the benchmark. It is the sum of the absolute values of the different weightings of each holding in the fund versus each holding in the benchmark, divided by 2. Standard Deviation measures the degree to which a fund's performance has varied from its average performance over a particular time period. The greater the standard deviation, the greater a fund's volatility (risk). Upside Capture explains how well a fund performs in time periods where the benchmark's returns are greater than zero. Downside Capture explains how well a fund performs in time periods where the benchmark's returns are less than zero.

Portfolio holdings are subject to risks and may change at any time.

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