Quality Growth Investment Philosophy

During the past three decades, we have never wavered from our core commitment to Quality Investing. Our investment philosophy emphasizes risk control, quality, consistency, and discipline. The Company invests for the long term and ignores passing investment fads. This philosophy results in a low-risk, low-turnover portfolio.

Our core equity strategy is founded on our belief that:

• Stock prices follow earnings.
• High quality, established companies provide superior returns with less risk.
• Dividend paying growth companies provide superior returns with less risk.
• Unnecessary portfolio turnover destroys value.
• Appropriate diversification lowers risk.

We also believe that the market often over values high-risk, unpredictable equities and under appreciates low-risk, predictable equities that provide meaningful returns on capital. As a result, the focus is on companies that have a long history of predictable and consistent earnings and dividend growth in good and bad economic times. We avoid cyclical companies whose earnings growth is closely tied to the strength of the economy.