Jensen Investment Management Launches New Jensen Value Fund

LAKE OSWEGO, Ore., March 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Jensen Investment Management, investment adviser to The Jensen Portfolio (JENSX) mutual fund, announced today the launch of its second mutual fund, the Jensen Value Fund. The Jensen Value Fund employs a value investment strategy with stocks selected from Jensen's current universe of quality companies.

The investment strategy underlying the new Jensen Value Fund applies various quantitative factors on a quarterly basis to a select universe of U.S. companies each with a minimum market capitalization of $1 billion. The quantitative strategies that are employed are rooted in fundamentally based investment principles and we believe are predictive of future market performance. Emphasis is placed most heavily on business fundamentals and valuations, and not on technical characteristics or stock price momentum. The fund then invests in those common stocks ranked by this multi-factor quantitative process that are within the top third of the identified universe of stocks. The Jensen Value Fund's investment discipline includes selling companies that fall from the highest ranking third of this stock universe.

Underpinnings of the Jensen Value Fund's philosophy and quantitative approach are embedded in academic research, Jensen's history as an investor and extensive back-testing of the Fund's investment universe.

The Jensen investment team has always focused solely on a well-defined universe of companies that historically have consistently produced high returns on capital. It is Jensen's team's belief that, if well managed, these businesses should create attractive shareholder value over the long term.

"We have devoted our efforts over time to investing in quality growth companies," noted Robert Zagunis, Chairman of the investment committee at Jensen Investment Management. "While deeply researching our universe of companies, it became apparent that a value-oriented strategy could also be developed which, we believe, will offer shareholders diversification benefits."

Like The Jensen Portfolio, the firm's flagship mutual fund, the new Jensen Value Fund's objective is long-term capital appreciation. But unlike its older sibling fund which is non-diversified and generally invests in 20 to 30 publicly-held businesses, the Jensen Value Fund is expected to be more diversified fund as it has no limitations on the number of companies it may hold. In addition, it is anticipated that the new Jensen Value Fund will have a more constrained investment capacity than The Jensen Portfolio. That means that the fund's adviser may elect to close the value fund to new investors once a specific, to be determined asset level is reached at some future date.