This strategy’s sensible, straightforward approach earns an Above Average Process rating.
To be clear, the strategy’s philosophy—that a portfolio of high-quality companies purchased at low valuations will likely outperform—isn’t unusual: Some of the specifics of the approach, however, give it an advantage. Lead manager Lawrence Playford notes that it’s quite difficult to craft valuation models that drive a persistent advantage. Instead, he and his team strive for a behavioral edge by adopting a longer-term view than the crowd.
Playford’s definition of quality is also pertinent. Like many value managers, he prefers steady businesses with modest revenue cyclicality and low earnings volatility. The most crucial ingredient, however, is that a company must have low enough financial leverage to survive economic downturns. That level differs from industry to industry.
While the approach has remained largely stable since comanager Jonathan Simon retired in March 2025, Playford has made upgrades. First, his team now writes down its investment theses for potential purchases with specific numerical expectations. The practice serves to guard against thesis drift—when investors trick themselves into changing a rationale after a company wanders from its expected path. He’s also starting to use green, yellow, and red flags to highlight fundamental behaviors. These are smart tweaks that enable Playford to eliminate mistakes more quickly.
Many value managers tout long holding periods, but this one has them. The standard mid-value category peer has averaged 59% annual portfolio turnover over the past five years, while this strategy averaged 23%.
The portfolio usually holds 80-120 stocks—Lawrence Playford says he prefers the low end of the range. No holding exceeds a 5% stake, and the top 10 positions accounted for about 17% of assets over the three years ended February 2026. That’s a bit more than the typical peer and more than double the Russell Midcap Value Index’s 7%, which has roughly 700 constituents.
The portfolio focuses more on mid-caps than most mid-value category peers, while its quality emphasis puts it near the border between value and core stocks. As of February 2026, while the typical mid-value fund devoted about half its assets to small and large caps, this strategy only invested 16% of its assets outside mid-caps. But 49% of assets were in mid-core equities, while only 24% were in mid-value fare—so those looking for a style-pure-value portfolio should look elsewhere.
Playford has reshaped the sector makeup as the lead manager. With departed comanager Jonathan Simon on board, the fund often overweighted financials—a favorite area for him. Playford reasonably wanted to pare back, partially given the sector’s reliance on unpredictable yield curve shifts. In March 2024 (when Playford took charge), the fund devoted 23% of assets to the area; now it’s just 16%. Meanwhile, Playford diversified into tech, healthcare, and energy stocks.
