The Fund invests primarily in a diversified portfolio of debt securities. These include debt obligations issued or guaranteed by the U.S. Government and foreign governments and their agencies and instrumentalities, debt securities issued by U.S. and foreign companies, collateralized mortgage obligations, and U.S. and foreign mortgage-backed and asset-backed debt securities. The Fund may invest up to 60% of its total assets in non-U.S. dollar securities, and may engage in currency hedging. Brandes Investment Partners, L.P., the investment adviser to the Fund (the “Adviser”), uses the principles of value investing to analyze and select debt securities for the Fund’s investment portfolio. As part of this process, the Adviser reviews such measures as the issuer’s free cash flow, debt-to-equity ratio, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (“EBITDA”)-to-interest ratio, debt-to-EBITDA ratio, or other measures of credit worthiness in evaluating the securities of a particular issuer.

The Fund may invest in debt instruments of any maturity or with no maturity and it may invest in both investment-grade securities and non-investment grade securities (also known as “high-yield bonds” or “junk bonds”). Up to 60% of the Fund’s total debt securities may be junk bonds. The Fund invests in debt securities that can be purchased at prices or yield premiums over U.S. Treasury securities (or other relatively risk-free securities) which the Adviser believes to be attractive based on the Adviser’s assessment of each security’s intrinsic value.

The Adviser primarily uses effective duration and modified duration measures (“duration”) to approximate the sensitivity of a security’s price to changes in interest rates. The longer a security’s duration, the more sensitive it will be to changes in interest rates. Similarly, a portfolio with a longer average portfolio duration will be more sensitive to changes in interest rates than a portfolio with a shorter average portfolio duration. The average portfolio duration of the Fund typically will vary and, under normal market conditions, will range between one and ten years.

The Adviser will typically sell a security from the Fund’s portfolio when the Adviser’s research process identifies a significantly better investment opportunity. The Adviser may also sell certain portfolio securities from time to time in order to adjust the average maturity, duration or yield of the Fund’s portfolio or to meet requirements for redemption of Fund shares.