The board of trustees of Vanguard Global Capital Cycles Fund (formerly known as Vanguard Precious Metals and Mining Fund) has renewed the fund’s investment advisory arrangement with Wellington Management Company, LLP (Wellington Management). The board determined that renewing the fund’s investment advisory arrangement was in the best interests of the fund and its shareholders.
The board based its decision upon an evaluation of the advisor’s investment staff, portfolio management process, and performance. This evaluation included information provided to the board by Vanguard’s Portfolio Review Department, which is responsible for fund and advisor oversight and product management. The Portfolio Review Department met regularly with the advisor and made presentations to the board during the fiscal year that directed the board’s focus to relevant information and topics.
The board, or an investment committee made up of board members, also received information throughout the year during advisor presentations. For each advisor presentation, the board was provided with letters and reports that included information about, among other things, the advisory firm and the advisor’s assessment of the investment environment, portfolio performance, and portfolio characteristics.
In addition, the board received periodic reports throughout the year, which included information about the fund’s performance relative to its peers and benchmark, as applicable, and updates, as needed, on the Portfolio Review Department’s ongoing assessment of the advisor.
Prior to their meeting, the trustees were provided with a memo and materials that summarized the information they received over the course of the year. They also considered the factors discussed below, among others. However, no single factor determined whether the board approved the arrangement. Rather, it was the totality of the circumstances that drove the board’s decision.
Nature, extent, and quality of services
The board reviewed the quality of the investment management services provided to the fund since Wellington Management began managing the fund in September 2018; it also took into account the organizational depth and stability of the advisor. The board considered that Wellington Management, founded in 1928, is among the nation’s oldest and most respected institutional investment managers. The advisor follows a global equity strategy that seeks to provide investors with uncorrelated returns to other asset classes through a blend of capital cycle and enduring assets. Identification of potential investments begins with the capital cycles framework, which seeks companies that are positioned to succeed through unique and superior business models and healthy balance sheets in sectors and industries where there is capital destruction, consolidation, or retrenchment of investment. Valuation and quality factors such as discount to intrinsic value, cash generation, capital expenditure, and future capital deployment opportunities are considered.
The board concluded that the advisor’s experience, stability, depth, and performance, among other factors, warranted continuation of the advisory arrangement.
Investment performance
The board considered the performance of Wellington Management since it began managing the fund in 2018, including any periods of outperformance or underperformance compared with a relevant benchmark index and peer group. The board concluded that the performance was such that the advisory arrangement should continue.