Aziz V. Hamzaogullari, CFA, serves as Founder, Chief Investment Officer, and Portfolio Manager of the Growth Equity Strategies Team at Loomis Sayles with over 32 years of investment industry experience. He holds a BS from Bilkent University in Turkey and an MBA from George Washington University, and is a CFA charterholder and member of the CFA Society of Boston. Prior to Loomis Sayles, he held senior positions at Evergreen Investments progressing from Senior Portfolio Manager to Managing Director, and at Manning & Napier Advisors. Under his leadership since 2010, Growth Equity Strategies assets under management grew from $1.9 billion to nearly $91 billion as of May 2025. He serves on the Board of Directors at Loomis Sayles and Board of Trustees at Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts. His flagship Growth Fund earned Morningstar's Gold Medalist Rating and grew from under $100 million to $16 billion AUM while delivering 16.57% annualized returns.

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The fund seeks to invest in high-quality companies with sustainable competitive advantages and profitable growth when they trade at a discount to intrinsic value estimates. The investment team employs a proprietary seven-step bottom-up research framework centered on three key criteria: Quality, Growth, and Valuation. The team believes less than one percent of all businesses can sustain competitive advantages beyond a decade and less than one percent can generate durable and profitable long-term growth. This necessitates being very selective and patient investors. The team employs time arbitrage, using long investment horizons to capture value from secular growth opportunities and capitalize on market short-termism. Risk is defined as permanent loss of capital rather than tracking error, with active risk management integrated throughout the investment process. The team seeks at least a 2:1 upside-to-downside reward-to-risk ratio and maintains average holding periods of 6-7 years.

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