NEW YORK, July 1, 2021—First Eagle Investment Management, LLC (“First Eagle”) today announced the launch of the First Eagle Small Cap Opportunity Fund (A-Share Class: FESAX; I-Share Class: FESCX; R6-Share Class: FESRX). The Fund pursues an opportunistic small cap value strategy, investing in companies that the portfolio management team believes to be attractively valued and have the potential to benefit from a catalyst—such as new management, a more favorable business cycle, product innovation and/or margin improvement—for a recovery in earnings growth.
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The Fund is managed by First Eagle’s Small Cap team, which was formed in April 2021 with the hiring of Portfolio Manager Bill Hench, Associate Portfolio Managers Suzanne Franks and Rob Kosowsky, and Senior Research Analyst Adam Mielnik. The team is well-established within the investment industry. All four were previously employed by Royce Investment Partners, where Hench was listed as one of the portfolio managers of the Small Cap Opportunistic Value strategy (including the Royce Opportunity Fund) as of 2004, becoming Co-Portfolio Manager in 2013; Franks and Kosowsky were listed as Assistant Portfolio Managers as of October 2018; and Mielnik served since 2014, most recently as a Senior Analyst.
“Though new to First Eagle, Bill and his team have brought with them a time-tested approach to small cap investing honed over many years focused on the asset class,” said Robert Bruno, Head of Retail Distribution at First Eagle. “Given the capacity constraints that often prevent investors from accessing many of the top-performing small cap mutual funds, we are pleased to provide financial professionals and their clients with a value-oriented investment solution in this space.”
The First Eagle Small Cap Opportunity Fund takes an opportunistic but disciplined approach to bottom-up portfolio construction, employing in-house fundamental research in an effort to identify companies that appear temporarily mispriced by the market due to inefficiently valued assets, turnaround potential, accelerating but overlooked earnings growth, or unacknowledged market leadership. True small cap specialists, the team typically holds 180–300 stocks—including microcap stocks with market capitalizations below $1 billion—in pursuit of broad diversification at the security level.
“While the limited liquidity in the US small cap equity market can amplify stock price movements in both directions, it also provides many attractive opportunities for disciplined active investors,” said Hench. “Our team has many years of experience working together to compile these opportunities into carefully risk-managed portfolios, and we are excited to offer this capability under the First Eagle name.”
About First Eagle Investment Management
First Eagle Investment Management is an independent, privately owned investment management firm headquartered in New York with approximately $109 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2021. Dedicated to providing prudent stewardship of client assets, the firm focuses on active, fundamental and benchmark-agnostic investing, with a strong emphasis on downside mitigation. Over a long history dating back to 1864, First Eagle has helped its clients avoid permanent impairment of capital and earn attractive returns through widely varied economic cycles—a tradition that is central to its mission today. The firm’s investment capabilities include equity, fixed income, alternative credit and multi-asset strategies. For more information on First Eagle, please visit www.feim.com. For information on the Alternative Credit team at First Eagle, please visit www.feac.com.
