Overview
Inception
Date
12.31.2015
Account
Minimum
$100,000
Philosophy
Seeks positions featuring attractive and sustainable multi-year return profiles underpinned by businesses perceived to possess:
- Robust financial returns and visible reinvestment opportunities
- Talented management
- Attractive valuation
Process
- Qualitative and quantitative screens identify opportunities
- Emphasis on proprietary primary research and due diligence
- Candidates and holdings continuously vetted by investment team to optimize risk/reward
Co-Portfolio Manager
Co-Portfolio Manager
Performance
| Term | QTR | YTD | 1 Year | 3 Years | 5 Years | 10 Years | Since Inception1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Focus Equity SMA (Gross) | -15.54 | -15.54 | 0.65 | 8.01 | 2.65 | 12.68 | 12.42 |
| Focus Equity SMA (Net) | -16.20 | -16.20 | -2.29 | 4.87 | -0.35 | 9.41 | 9.16 |
| Bloomberg U.S. 1000 Growth | -9.78 | -9.78 | 18.81 | 21.18 | 12.76 | 16.83 | 16.47 |
1The composite inception date is 12.31.2015. The benchmark is the Bloomberg U.S. 1000 Growth Index. The net of fee performance reflects the deduction of the maximum SMA bundled fee of 3.00% annually for all periods presented. Performance is preliminary and is annualized for periods longer than one year. Net of fees performance returns are presented net of the SMA bundled fee, which includes all charges for trading costs, advisory services, portfolio management, custody and other administrative fees. “Pure” Gross of fees performance returns do not reflect the deduction of any fees including trading costs: a client’s return will be reduced by the management fees and other expenses it may incur. Investment management fees are described in SCM's Form ADV 2A. Performance reflects the reinvestment of interest income and dividends and realized capital gains. The performance presented represents past performance and is no guarantee of future results. Performance is compared to an index: however, the volatility of an index varies greatly and investments cannot be made directly in an index. Market conditions vary from year to year and can result in a decline in market value due to material market or economic conditions. Sources: Morningstar Direct; Sterling Capital Management Analytics. Please refer to the GIPS Composite Report in the factsheet linked below for additional disclosures.
Focus Equity SMA
Materials
SMA
Insights
07.14.2026 • Charles Wittmann, CFA®
The Lead - Case for Compounding
In the current market, traditional characteristics of classic long term investing, such as sustainable earnings growth and its byproduct of paying increasingly higher dividends over time, appear to have been pushed into the corner. This month, we show how these stocks that have tended to trade at a premium to the market currently trade at a discount. Moreover, stocks with these characteristics, while challenged from a performance basis recently, have shown an ability to outperform over long periods of time.
06.23.2026
Gregory Zage, CFA®, James Kerin, CFA®
The Sterling Capital VAULT: The U.S. Consumer
The Fixed Income team's insight on how the economy is impacting high-income vs. low-income U.S. consumers.
05.11.2026 • Charles Wittmann, CFA®
One of the beauties of dividend growth investing is that companies with a history of not only sharing their earnings through dividend payments to their shareholders, but increasing those dividends provides valuable insight into their priorities and ability to pay amounts that can grow over time. But despite higher corporate earnings, the percentage shared with their shareholders has been falling over the past several years. If there is value in scarcity with dividend growth scarce, companies that not only pay dividends, but growth them faster than the market appear to have a valuable quality.
04.29.2026
The Sterling Capital VAULT: AI Datacenter Risk
The Fixed Income team's insight on AI and related datacenter buildout.
04.13.2026 • Charles Wittmann, CFA®
The Lead - Revisionist History
This month Empirical Research provided additional data around the uniquely strong period for the performance of earnings revisions that couple with their observation that recent price momentum has been the strongest in seven decades. The 2020’s have seen the strongest performance for earnings revisions since the 1980’s. Our observation is that the uniquely strong performance of earnings revisions has been reflected in higher valuations for these securities with attractive valuations in more stable and consistent earnings growers.
03.11.2026 • Charles Wittmann, CFA®
The Lead - Signposts for Quality Improvement
This month we look back in history for signs when quality stocks began to experience relative performance improvement trends. We identify two themes and provide a perspective on the current environment. Finally, we assess current valuations of higher quality stocks versus lower quality across a variety of metrics.
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