Our Lipper Award-winning Income Opportunities Fund seeks to take advantage of niche opportunities within inefficient, non-indexed structured credit segments of the fixed income market. Investing in structured credit may offer investors many benefits like high income, capital appreciation, less volatility and lower sensitivity to interest rates, but we believe this type of investing is a specialized skill.
Income Opportunities Fund portfolio managers Jay Menozzi and Boris Peresechensky have a combined over 50 years of structured credit experience and a long track record of managing a diverse set of mandates and products across a variety of market environments including mortgage crises. This experience, combined with their proprietary active value approach gives our Income Opportunities Fund a distinctive competitive advantage.
Portfolio Manager History
2023 | Income Opportunities Fund hits its 5-year anniversary, maintaining a 5-Star Morningstar rating (overall in the Multisector Bond category out of 316 funds, based on risk-adjusted returns1). Income Opportunities Fund wins 2023 Lipper Award out of 128 share classes for a 3-year period as of 12/31/2022 in the U.S. Mortgage Fund Category. |
2022 | Income Opportunities Fund wins 2023 Lipper Award out of 128 share classes for a 3-year period as of 12/31/2022 in the U.S. Mortgage Fund Category. Armand Thompson, CFA joins Orange team as a Senior Analyst. |
2021 | By its 3-year anniversary, Jay and Boris bring the Income Opportunities Fund to a 5-Star Morningstar rating (overall in the Multisector Bond category out of 278 based on risk-adjusted returns1). 1). |
2018 | Orange launches its first fund, the Income Opportunities Fund (JSVIX), in partnership with Easterly Funds. |
2017 | Jay and Boris launch Orange Investment Advisors, a structured credit investment boutique. |
2016 | Jay and Boris decide to jointly leave Semper to launch their own investment firm. |
2013 | On the heels of their hedge fund success, Semper launches the Semper Total Return Mortgage Fund which Jay and Boris manage. |
2011 | Jay and Boris manage a second hedge fund launched by Semper, the Midas Fund. |
2010 | Jay is named CIO at Semper. |
2009 | Jay oversees the restructuring of Semper’s investment team and business as the firm transitions from an investment grade fixed income shop to a boutique distressed mortgage specialist. Jay is instrumental in Semper’s launch of a distressed mortgage hedge fund, the Opportunistic Mortgage Strategy Fund, which lands General Electric Asset Management (GEAM) as the seed investor. Jay’s team is appointed subadvisor to the Blackrock portfolio within the government’s Public-Private Investment Partnership (PPIP) program. Each of the government’s 9 chosen managers was required to hire a minority-owned firm to serve in some capacity. Of all minority-owned partners, Jay’s team is the only one with direct investment discretion, subadvising 5% of Blackrock’s portfolio. |
2008 | After the demise of Lehman Brothers, Jay and Boris begin implementing their quantitative model and successfully add distressed non-agency RMBS to select Agency MBS index-based portfolios. |
2007 | Jay and Boris collaborate to develop one of the early loan-level non-agency RMBS default quantitative models. |
2005 | Jay hires Boris as a Senior Trader and Portfolio Manager. |
1999 | The mortgage group Jay is managing at Atlantic is acquired by Utendahl Capital. Jay is named Head of Mortgages at Utendahl, which later becomes Semper Capital in 2013. |
1987 | Jay begins his investment career and joins Atlantic. In his 12 years with the firm, Jay’s responsibilities included managing mortgage pass-throughs and mortgage derivatives, in long only and leveraged hedge fund portfolios. |
Risks and Disclosures
| 8/31/2023 | QTD | YTD | 1-Year | 3-Year | 5-Year | Since Inception (8/21/2018) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I Share | 0.59% | 3.71% | 1.56% | 2.03% | 4.81% | 4.83% |
| Morningstar Multisector Bond Category | 0.72% | 3.66% | 2.59% | -0.33% | 1.59% | 1.58% |
| Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index | -0.71% | 1.37% | -1.19% | -4.41% | 0.49% | 0.48% |
Past performance does not guarantee future results and current performance may be lower or higher than the performance data quoted. The investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate, so that shares when redeemed may be worth more or less than their original cost. Investors cannot invest directly into an index. For performance information current to the most recent month-end, please call
888-814-8180.
Source: Morningstar Direct. Performance data quoted above is historical.
The Fund’s management has contractually waived a portion of its management fees until March 31, 2024 for I, A, C and R6 Shares. The performance shown reflects the waivers without which the performance would have been lower. Total annual operating expenses before the expense reduction/reimbursement are 1.61%, 1.86%, 2.61% and 1.61% respectively; total annual operating expenses after the expense reduction/reimbursement are 1.55%, 1.80%, 2.55% and 1.18% respectively2. 2.00% is the maximum sales charge on purchases of A Shares.
Investors should carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of the Fund. This and other information about the Fund is contained in the prospectus, which can be obtained by calling 888-814-8180 and should be read carefully before investing.
The Easterly Funds are distributed by Ultimus Fund Distributors, LLC. Easterly Funds, LLC and Orange Investment Advisors, LLC are not affiliated with Ultimus Fund Distributors, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC. Certain associates of Easterly Funds, LLC are registered with FDX Capital LLC, member FINRA/SIPC
IMPORTANT FUND RISK
The derivatives that the Fund primarily expects to use include options, futures and swaps. Derivatives may be volatile and some derivatives have the potential for loss that is greater than the Fund’s initial investment. The liquidity of the futures market depends on participants entering into offsetting transactions rather than making or taking delivery. High yield, below investment grade and unrated high risk debt securities (which also may be known as “junk bonds”) may present additional risks because these securities may be less liquid, and therefore more difficult to value accurately and sell at an advantageous price or time, present more credit risk than investment grade bonds and may be subject to greater risk of default. Interest rate risk refers to the risk that bond prices generally fall as interest rates rise; conversely, bond prices generally rise as interest rates fall. There is no guarantee that the investment techniques and risk analysis used by the portfolio managers will produce the desired results. MBS and ABS have different risk characteristics than traditional debt securities. Credit spread risk is the risk that credit spreads (i.e., the difference in yield between securities that is due to differences in their credit quality) may increase when the market believes that bonds generally have a greater risk of default.\
*The Refinitiv Lipper Fund Awards, granted annually, highlight funds and fund companies that have excelled in delivering consistently strong risk-adjusted performance relative to their peers. The Refinitiv Lipper Fund Awards are based on the Lipper Leader for Consistent Return rating, which is a risk-adjusted performance measure calculated over 36, 60 and 120 months. The fund with the highest Lipper Leader for Consistent Return (Effective Return) value in each eligible classification wins the Refinitiv Lipper Fund Award. For more information, see http://www.lipperfundawards.com/. Although Refinitiv Lipper makes reasonable efforts to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the data contained herein, the accuracy is not guaranteed by Refinitiv Lipper.
1 © 2022 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The information contained herein: (1) is proprietary to Morningstar; (2) may not be copied or distributed; and (3) is not warranted to be accurate, complete or timely. Neither Morningstar nor its content providers are responsible for any damages or losses arising from any use of this information. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The Morningstar Rating™ for funds, or “star rating”, is calculated for managed products (including mutual funds, variable annuity and variable life subaccounts, exchange-traded funds, closed-end funds and separate accounts) with at least a three-year history. Exchange-traded funds and open-ended mutual funds are considered a single population for comparative purposes. It is calculated based on a Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return measure that accounts for variation in a managed product’s monthly excess performance, placing more emphasis on downward variations and rewarding consistent performance. The Morningstar Rating does not include any adjustment for sales loads. The top 10% of products in each product category receive 5 stars, the next 22.5% receive 4 stars, the next 35% receive 3 stars, the next 22.5% receive 2 stars and the bottom 10% receive 1 star. The Overall Morningstar Rating for a managed product is derived from a weighted average of the performance figures associated with its three-, five- and 10-year (if applicable) Morningstar Rating metrics. The weights are: 100% three-year rating for 36-59 months of total returns, 60% five-year rating/40% three-year rating for 60-119 months of total returns and 50% 10-year rating/30% five-year rating/20% three-year rating for 120 or more months of total returns. While the 10-year overall star rating formula seems to give the most weight to the 10-year period, the most recent three-year period actually has the greatest impact because it is included in all three rating periods. Morningstar Rating is for the Institutional share class only; other classes may have different performance characteristics.
Morningstar Category/Morningstar Category % Rank Investments are placed into Morningstar categories based on their compositions and portfolio statistics so that investors can make meaningful comparisons. Morningstar Category % Rank is a fund’s total-return percentile rank relative to all funds in the same category. The highest (or most favorable) percentile rank is one and the lowest (or least favorable) percentile rank is 100. The Category % Rank complements the Morningstar Rating, especially for funds in smaller categories because these funds may have received a 3-star rating but could be in the top half of their category performance.
| JSVIX as of 8/31/2023 | Overall | 3-Year |
|---|---|---|
| Morningstar Rating | 5-Stars | 5-Stars |
| # of Funds in Category | 316 | 316 |
2 The Fund’s investment adviser has contractually agreed to reduce and/or absorb expenses until at least March 31, 2023 for I, A, C and R6 Shares, to ensure that net annual operating expenses of the fund will not exceed 1.48%, 1.73%, 2.48% and 1.11%, respectively, subject to possible recoupment from the Fund in future years.
17276545-UFD 09/12/2023