Kirk William Buese

AEGON investments are comprised primarily of bonds, with remaining assets invested in commercial mortgage loans, alternative investments and equities. The firm seeks to identify unrecognized growth potential in markets and individual stocks through a combination of active top-down and bottom-up analysis. Their investment process employs fundamentally driven research that is supported by quantitative analysis which results in the screening and ranking of markets and stocks and consistent implementation across portfolios. Though not limited by sector, the firm tends to invest in the stocks of small-cap and mid-cap companies in the finance, utilities, technology services and non-energy minerals sectors. AEGON maintains a low turnover rate.

AUIM believes that the recognition of the asymmetrical nature of risk in the securities market, strong risk management, a long-term perspective and balancing top-down macroeconomic analysis with proprietary bottom-up research as appropriate to the individual strategy are the key success factors to strong investment performance over the long-term. For most AUIM fundamental fixed income strategies, the investment process combines top-down macroeconomic outlooks with bottom-up credit research in a procedure overlaid with risk monitoring and risk management. This process emphasizes consistent research and analysis of fundamentals, sentiment and positioning, technical and valuation at multiple stages: top-down analysis; and sector and security-level idea generation. The firm's investment process seeks to balance top-down macroeconomic analysis with proprietary bottom-up research as appropriate for the individual strategy.

Providian Financial Corporation was one of the leading credit card issuers in the United States when it was sold to Washington Mutual for approximately US$6.5 billion in October 2005.