Marci Sue Gartner

Functions as a College/University

Summit Investment Partners' (SIP) investment capabilities include: (1) corporate fixed-income (2) mortgage-backed fixed income (3) large-cap growth equity (4) commercial mortgages and real estate (5) indexed products and (6) structured products. The firm's large-cap growth equity strategy focuses on investments in US-based, large-cap growth companies with superior earnings potential, strong management teams, relatively low debt structures and industry leadership. The firm seeks to invest in such companies when they are trading at reasonable valuations. SIP's selection process is based on bottom-up, fundamental company-specific research, as well as economic analysis. They adjust company weightings by industry or sector to the most attractive industries and companies based on their economic forecast. Changes in weightings do not override SIP's diversification discipline. Individual company weightings typically range from 1% to 5%. The firm does not engage in market timing or rely extensively on technical analysis. They take a long-term perspective when evaluating companies and look for investments with the potential to outperform over time and over the course of business cycles. Though not limited by sector, SIP tends to invest in the stocks of large-cap companies in the finance, electronic technology, health technology and technology services sectors. Although most of their investments are in US companies, they also invest in Europe and Asia. SIP maintains a medium turnover rate. SIP's corporate fixed-income strategy is based on the belief that the institutional credit markets are generally efficient and the interest rate markets are extremely efficient. The firm generally positions portfolios to be duration-neutral relative to the client's chosen benchmark. However, SIP also believes that the market often incorrectly prices the fixed-income securities of a specific credit, group of credits or entire sectors relative to credit or industry fundamentals, ranking within the capital structure or yield curve position. They seek exploit these pricing inefficiencies by selecting the optimal securities for addition to client's portfolios. SIP's objective is to outperform the specified benchmark for a given level of risk while adhering to the client's guidelines and constraints. SIP begins their credit process at the macro level, defining their views on the economy, the absolute level and direction of interest rates and the shape of the yield and credit curves and how they may change. The firm's macro view on the economy is partially expressed through the allocation of the client's assets relative to the client's benchmark. Views on individual sectors are based on proprietary fundamental research of every major sector with benchmark exposure. Initially, the weighting assigned to a sector is equivalent to the sector's weighting in the benchmark. SIP next overweights the sectors they believe will outperform the market and underweights the sectors they believe will underperform the market. Individual securities are selected based on the client's objectives and SIP's sector weightings, proprietary credit analysis and preferred placement on the yield curve while maintaining duration neutrality. The firm conducts a thorough credit review on every security prior to purchase. Their credit analysis seeks is to identify bonds that offer relative value or those that offer the best risk/reward characteristics in a given sector. Credit spreads are monitored on a daily basis. In addition, portfolio managers perform monthly analysis of each portfolios return versus the benchmark to better understand the portfolios performance. They also conduct a quarterly credit review for each of the companies in the portfolio. SIP purchases: (1) securities with attractive credit fundamentals (2) securities that offer compelling relative value and (3) securities, market sectors or themes as identified by the Strategy Committee. A security may be sold if: (1) its credit fundamentals deteriorate (2) it becomes fully-valued as its relative value is recognized and/or (3) there are changes in SIP's view or outlook of a sector or the overall economy. SIP's mortgage and asset-backed strategy seeks to provide superior, risk-adjusted returns by identifying undervalued securities through a disciplined investment process and prudent risk diversification. Their MBS approach is based on both top-down and bottom-up analysis of every security they consider for investment. Top-down analysis is performed on a quarterly and annual basis to establish the sector outlook, originator/servicer profile and relative value. The firm employs bottom-up analysis to identify fundamentally sound credit. They develop a thorough understanding of all aspects of a transaction including rating methodology, collateral characteristics and deal structure prior to selecting specific securities. SIP then develops an understanding of each rating agency's overall method for the asset class. They obtain all transaction reports including pre-sale reports, press releases and surveillance reports and stay in contact with the rating agency analyst regarding trends. SIP examines the distributions of all collateral characteristics, not just the averages, to identify any outliers in distribution. They compare collateral characteristics to prior deals to identify any underwriting drift and compare collateral characteristics to peer deals to determine if risk is adequately priced in the market. SIP employs both quantitative and qualitative methods to ensure performance of the portfolio. SIP offers index strategies that are based on broad, well-known indices across a variety of asset classes. They seek to provide an efficient, effective way to invest in a variety of market segments and provide diverse asset allocation opportunities in an easily constructed portfolio. The firm's index strategies main objective is to achieve returns that have a high correlation to the investment performance of their indices. They strive to minimize tracking error by reducing trading expenses. To maintain full exposure to the underlying index, SIP will invest the amount of cash on hand in futures contracts or other instruments that closely track the appropriate index. The firm's standard portfolio management strategy is full replication of the index, owning all the benchmark securities at the same weights as the benchmarks. They also construct index strategies that utilize stratified sampling strategies to reduce costs when an index consists of thinly-traded and/or a large number of securities. To help achieve these goals, SIP uses a trade positioning system to analyze portfolios. This system allows them to compare portfolios to their benchmarks and evaluate overweightings or underweightings on a security by security basis. SIP calculates rebalances, or investments and redemptions of cash, while continuing to replicate the index. They also buy slices or baskets of stocks in an index, thereby reducing portfolio turnover. SIP's passively managed index strategies include: Large-Cap, Mid-Cap, Small-Cap, Fixed-Income and Balanced. SIP also offers structured products in both the corporate and residential mortgage-backed securities sectors. The firm believes these products are opportunistic and should be issued only when market conditions offer the opportunity to exploit favorable execution.