GDIV and the Wonder of Westfield

Weighing In on Westfield

Here at Harbor, we make it our business to find what we think are the hidden gems of boutique managers. One such manager, Westfield Capital, exhibits an abundance of characteristics that we look for in our search to unearth specialized, bespoke managers. Importantly, Westfield’s continuity and experience of its senior team affords a repeatable process over time, while its committee approach and collaborative culture encourages diverse ideas and thorough vetting.

The company’s robust investment process outlined below also serves as a differentiator amongst the myriad of investment choices available to investors:

Investment Process

Career Sector Analysts

• Experienced investment team comprised of sector experts with deep domain expertise
• Senior investment professionals responsible for bottom-up due diligence and stock selection
• Conduct hundreds of meetings with management teams every quarter

Cover Across the Market Cap Range

• Better understanding of the market dynamics and relationships between companies
• Ability to build a more complete mosaic across the market cap range

Benefits From the Collective Wisdom of Senior Investment Team

• Encourages collaboration and information sharing
• Thorough vetting of all investment ideas from a variety of viewpoints

Geared Up for GDIV

In particular, the Harbor Dividend Growth Leaders ETF (GDIV) managed by Westfield features the latter’s growth investing heritage, narrowing its focus even further to those investments that can support dividend growth over the long term. In this way, GDIV aims to position itself to not only participate in market rallies, but also to provide downside protection, with the goal of producing an attractive risk-adjusted result.

We appreciate that GDIV plays a dual role, offering both income and growth potential in one investment. GDIV provides a one-size-fits-all investment opportunity, in our view, given its focus on investing in businesses with solid free cash flow generation, strong balance sheets, and disciplined management teams. When layered with the added feature of a focus on investments with solid footing to achieve long-term dividend growth, we believe there are few products that can compete as risk-aware, income-oriented options, making GDIV appropriate for a core allocation in a portfolio.

Important Information

Investments involve risk including the possible loss of principal. There is no guarantee the investment objective of the Fund will be achieved. The Fund's emphasis on dividend paying stocks involves the risk that such stocks may fall out of favor with investors and under-perform the market. There is no guarantee that a company will pay or continually increase its dividend. The Fund may invest in a limited number of companies or at times may be more heavily invested in particular sectors. As a result, the Fund's performance may be more volatile, and the value of its shares may be especially sensitive to factors that specifically effect those sectors. The Fund may invest in foreign securities which may be more volatile and less liquid due to currency fluctuation, political instability, government sanctions, social and economic risks. Foreign currencies can decline in value and can adversely affect the dollar value of the fund.

Investing involves risk, principal loss is possible. Unlike mutual funds, ETFs may trade at a premium or discount to their net asset value. Shares are bought and sold at market price not net asset value (NAV). Market price returns are based upon the closing composite market price and do not represent the returns you would receive if you traded shares at other times.

Diversification does not assure a profit or protect against loss in a declining market.

The views expressed herein are those of Harbor Capital Advisors, Inc. investment professionals. They may not be reflective of current opinions, are subject to change without prior notice, and should not be considered investment advice.

Westfield Capital Management, L.P. is the subadvisor for the Harbor Dividend Growth Leaders ETF.

3115599