span style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:10pt;"The Adviser pursues the Fund’s investment objective by investing, under normal circumstances, principally in equity securities of small-capitalization companies. The Fund typically invests in equity securities of U.S. companies but may also invest any portion of its assets in foreign securities, including depositary receipts such as American Depositary Receipts (“ADRs”) and Global Depositary Receipts (“GDRs”)./spanspan style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:10pt;"The Adviser considers a company to be a small-capitalization company if its market capitalization (at the time of purchase) is less than $3 billion or 120% of the market capitalization of the largest company included in the Russell 2000/spanspan style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:6.5pt;position:relative;top:-4.25pt;"®/spanspan style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:10pt;" Index (the “Index”) (currently, approximately $41.0 billion, based on the size of the largest company in the Index on March 31, 2026), whichever is greater. The size of companies in the Index changes with market conditions and the composition of the Index./spanspan style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:10pt;"In evaluating investments for the Fund, the Adviser conducts fundamental research to identify companies with improving returns on invested capital. The Adviser’s research efforts seek to identify the primary economic and value drivers for each company. Research focuses on a company’s capital deployment strategy, including decisions about capital expenditures, acquisitions, cost-saving initiatives, and share repurchase/ dividend plans, as the Adviser seeks to understand how returns on invested capital may improve over time. Valuation is considered an important part of the process. The Adviser seeks to invest in companies based on its assessment of risk (the possibility of permanent capital impairment) and reward (the future value of the enterprise)./spanspan style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:10pt;"The Adviser regularly reviews the Fund’s investments and will sell securities when the Adviser believes the securities are no longer attractive because (1) of a deterioration in rank of the security in accordance with the Adviser’s process, (2) of price appreciation, (3) of a change in the fundamental outlook of the company, or (4) other available investments are considered to be more attractive./spanspan style="color:#000000;font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:10pt;"The Fund holds a relatively few number of securities; and as a result of the Adviser’s investment process, the Fund’s investments may be focused in one or more economic sectors from time to time, including the financials sector./span