Investment Philosophy

Since World War II, domestic economic growth has created large pools of not only individual wealth, but also wealth for corporations and foundations. Recently the process of investing these funds has changed dramatically with an explosion in the number of mutual funds, hedge funds, annuities, and other products, thereby increasing both the number of investment options available and the complexity inherent in the selection process.

At Investors Trust Company, we have drawn together a group of seasoned professionals who understand the markets and can personalize specific portfolios to structure them to be truly tax efficient.

With the continued mergers among the largest asset managers in the region, and their move to force even wealthy individuals into proprietary mutual funds, we feel strongly that a tax efficient, individualized investment strategy for most clients is sorely lacking in our marketplace. Investors Trust Company incorporates the best features of both closely held investment advisors and high performing trust companies. We are committed to clarity of focus in meeting our clients' needs and long-term relationship continuity.

We believe that the most important decision in the investment process is that of asset allocation, as each client has different needs and objectives. Investors Trust Company's role is to clearly identify these needs and objectives, and once these are defined in conjunction with the client's income needs and tolerance for investment risk, we build portfolios using equities and fixed income instruments.

Our fixed income discipline also is targeted at outperforming the appropriate index without subjecting the client to undue risk. Given our orientation toward capital preservation in this discipline, we structure a client's portfolio using these guidelines:

• High credit quality with maturities generally not beyond the intermediate term.
• Our primary emphasis is to maximize income consistent with capital preservation. Adding risk through large interest rate bets is inconsistent with our investment strategy.

We will seek to exploit occasional inefficiencies (an example of which would be an extreme weakness in the financial sector) when yields justify. The benchmark index for our fixed income portfolios is the Barclays Intermediate Government/Corporate Index.