Focus Growth Strategy

A concentrated portfolio of exceptionally advantaged US businesses compounding value over the long-term.

The Polen Focus Growth Strategy, managed by the Large Company Growth team at Polen Capital, consists in a concentrated portfolio of exceptional U.S. businesses with strong growth and durable competitive advantages. With a disciplined, bottom-up approach honed over decades, the team invests only in companies that meet rigorous quality, growth, and financial strength criteria. Their philosophy is rooted in the belief that long-term compounding from a focused set of high-conviction ideas can deliver meaningful value for investors over the long-term. As a strategic partner, iM Global Partner supports the distribution of this strategy to institutional and professional investors globally.

Polen Capital

Manager

January 1989

Inception of Strategy

USD

Base Currency

Investment Philosophy

The Polen Focus Growth strategy seeks to achieve long-term growth by building a concentrated portfolio of outstanding businesses with competitive advantages and the potential for sustained superior growth.

Polen’s philosophy is grounded in the belief that high-quality companies, those with strong balance sheets, resilient earnings profiles, and forward-looking leadership, are best positioned to deliver sustainable, above-average earnings growth over time. This repeatable, high-conviction process is designed not only to compound wealth but to preserve capital and navigate market volatility with confidence and clarity.

The Large Company Growth team applies selective financial “guardrails” to identify the most competitively advantaged business able to compound growth over the long term. Consequently, the Focus Growth portfolio has a strong bias toward larger capitalization businesses with organic growth at stable to increasing margins, little or no debt, high conversion of accounting earnings to cash flow and sustainably high returns on capital.

The Team

Damon Ficklin

Polen Capital
Head of Team,
Portfolio Manager & Analyst

Stephen Atkins, CFA

Polen Capital
Portfolio Manager,
Strategist & Analyst

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Disclosure:

Polen Capital Management, LLC is an independent registered investment advisor.

The Russell 1000® Growth Index is a market capitalization weighted index that measures the performance of the large-cap growth segment of the U.S. equity universe. It includes Russell 1000® Index companies with higher price-to-book ratios and higher forecasted growth values. The index is maintained by the FTSE Russell, a subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group. The S&P 500® Index is a market capitalization weighted index that measures 500 common equities that are generally representative of the U.S. stock market. The index is maintained by S&P Dow Jones Indices. It is impossible to invest directly in an index. The performance of an index does not reflect any transaction costs, management fees, or taxes.

ESG refers to Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria. The Global Emerging Markets ex-China Growth strategy integrates material environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into research analysis as part of a comprehensive evaluation of a company’s long-term financial sustainability. There is a risk that the investment techniques and risk analyses applied, including but not limited to the integration of ESG factors into the research analysis, will not produce the desired results and that legislative, regulatory, or tax developments may affect the investment techniques available. There is no guarantee that the investment objective will be achieved.

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