Global Structured Research Equity Fund

Capital at risk. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of current or future results and should not be the sole factor of consideration when selecting a product or strategy.

The listed funds are not an exhaustive list of funds available. Visit www.funds.troweprice.com to see the full range of funds offered by T. Rowe Price, including those that consider environmental and social characteristics as part of their investment process. For up to date information regarding any T. Rowe Price fund's investment strategy, please see the relevant fund KID and prospectus.

Overview

Manager's Outlook

The current pushes and pulls in the market are incredibly complex. From a fundamental perspective, near- to intermediate-term economic and corporate data are likely�going to be exceedingly strong. We are still operating in a very low interest rate world, in any absolute sense, rates remain near historic lows, with a massive amount of central bank liquidity and fiscal stimulus at a time when real GDP growth is picking up and corporate earnings are likely to accelerate this year and next. While equity valuations are still more reasonable when compared with bond yields, they are clearly above average for a normal environment, which causes some concern.

�

The ongoing health pandemic offers its own pushes and pulls. There has been a marked improvement in vaccine distribution within the U.S., with 2% to 3% of the country's population being vaccinated each week. However, the vaccine rollouts in parts of Europe and Asia have been rockier and the virus is likely to remain in the world for some time, particularly in some emerging market countries where we may be more than a year out before many people can obtain the vaccine, which amplifies risks of virus variants.�

�

The Biden administration's emerging priorities offer positives and negatives for equity investors as well. Widespread fiscal stimulus has supported asset prices, but the increasing likelihood of rising corporate tax rates could put a damper on after-tax corporate earnings. Geopolitically, relations between the U.S. and China remain complex. The arrival of a new U.S. administration increased expectations for less adversarial relations, but it has become clear that underlying tensions between the two superpowers are real, structural, and unlikely to go away.

�

We have also seen exuberance and extreme positive sentiment in markets. There has been an explosion in special-purpose acquisition companies and initial public offerings as well as retail investors with growing risk-seeking behavior driving price movements. While we think we have entered a new equity bubble with areas of the market looking frothy and irrational, it could be years before we experience a meaningful reversion, which means there could still be room for equities to move higher.

�

Recognizing the challenging pushes and pulls in the market, we are trying to be more balanced with the portfolio, keeping the overall portfolio beta near 1.0, not overly offensive or defensive, while focusing on picking stocks broadly across sectors and regions. We think volatility is likely to increase, in part due to higher dispersion within factors, styles, and sectors, and think such an environment is well suited for active investment. While financial and market conditions have changed meaningfully, and will continue to do so, our investment philosophy, rooted in stock selection and a thoughtful approach to portfolio construction, has not. It is this consistent process that allows us to successfully navigate more challenging cycles.

Strategy

Fund Summary

The fund is managed to combine fundamental research insights with a highly structured portfolio construction process. Participating analysts across the globe make buy and sell decisions for their individual portions of the portfolio, subject to the oversight and discretion of the portfolio managers. The fund is designed to add value from our analysts’ stock-specific insights, and our approach to portfolio construction minimises style, country, sector, and industry exposures versus its benchmark. The promotion of environmental and/or social characteristics is achieved through the fund's commitment to maintain at least 10% of the value of its portfolio invested in Sustainable Investments, as defined by the SFDR. Additionally, we apply a proprietary responsible screen (exclusion list). The manager is constrained by the benchmark due to its use in portfolio construction - please see the prospectus for further information. The benchmark can also be used for performance comparison purposes.

Performance - Net of Fees

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

31-Mar-2021 - Scott Berg, Portfolio Manager,

Global equities generated solid returns in March amid accelerating vaccine rollouts, generally strong economic data, and continued accommodative monetary policy and fiscal stimulus. Within the portfolio, our holdings in the information technology sector had the most negative impact on relative performance. Shares of Brazilian payment processing company StoneCo fell amid the ongoing political and health crisis in Brazil as most of the country was in lockdown by March. We continue to believe that StoneCo, which is attacking a huge market ripe for disruption, is in a good position to gain share. With a strong management team and solid execution, the company operates a highly service-oriented model and is introducing cutting-edge technology into Brazil’s payments market. On the positive side, industrials and business services boosted relative results. Shares of global parcel and freight delivery service FedEx spiked following a strong earnings report, beating analyst expectations despite a negative impact from winter storms. Revenue growth and margin improvement in ground delivery services were highlights of the report. We think FedEx offers a compelling cyclical opportunity due to a number of positive growth drivers that should coalesce over the near term.

30-Sep-2020 - Scott Berg, Portfolio Manager,

Given the high degree of difficulty we are seeing in navigating today's market, we are focused on maintaining a broadly balanced portfolio and remain largely sector neutral in our positioning. We also want to be cognizant of heightened risk and a diversified portfolio helps us mitigate these risks and avoid high correlation and unintended bets. We still own a blend of structural winners, durable compounders, and higher yielding names that held up well during the March sell-off but lagged on the way back up.

Sector-wise, we are overweight consumer discretionary and financials, though not dramatically so. During the quarter, our allocations to industrials and business services and utilities increased, while our exposure to information technology and materials decreased as we trimmed or eliminated strong winners. From a regional perspective, the continued strong performance of developed equity markets relative to their emerging markets counterparts has led to our EM weighting trending modestly lower. However, in a low growth world, we continue to think investing in the fast growing emerging market countries, such as India, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, and Peru, will be more important than ever.

Industrials and Business Services

The industrial economy is slowly starting to recover. Areas such as the airline industry remained challenged, but we are finding opportunities elsewhere within the sector, and are taking a long-term approach with our investments in the space. We remain focused on high-quality companies that can benefit from multiyear growth trends and increases in global trade and capital spending. We are attracted to less cyclical, durable earnings growers in industries with attractive growth dynamics and are largely avoiding companies with commodity capital expenditures exposure.

We began a position in global parcel and freight delivery service FedEx. We think FedEx offers a compelling cyclical opportunity due to a number of positive growth drivers that should coalesce over the near term. In particular, the coronavirus has increased demand and tightened capacity, leading to higher pricing for the industry. We also think there are company-specific tailwinds that should help drive accelerating earnings and margin improvement, including better cost synergies and prolonged capacity constraint and pricing strength in air freight, where FedEx has a dominant position.
We started a position in Chart Industries, which provides equipment and supplies for the industrial gas, energy, and biomedical industries. We think the firm's most compelling segments are in supplying industrial gases like hydrogen as well as cryogenics, and believe there are a number of growth drivers, both cyclical and structural, that could help fuel accelerating earnings over the long term. With a diversified business structure in an industry with high barriers to entry and little competition, we think Chart Industries is well positioned for growth over the long term.

Financials

With leading central banks having cut rates and ramped up quantitative easing measures to help counteract the negative economic impact from the coronavirus, we think we are in a lower rate environment for longer than we had anticipated. While we remain underweight developed market banks due to the challenging rate environment, we have found idiosyncratic ideas in the U.S., Europe, and Canada to add to the portfolio. Our bets within the sector are largely concentrated in capital markets names and emerging market banks. We also have exposure to high-quality insurance companies.

We moved on from our position in E*TRADE Financial. The stock has performed well in recent months, and the company is set to be acquired by Morgan Stanley. With upside limited, we chose to exit our position.
We eliminated our position in DNB, Norway's largest retail and commercial bank. The stock spiked on strong earnings results, so we chose to move on to higher conviction names.

Consumer Discretionary

We initiated a position in THG Holdings, participating in the firm's initial public offering (IPO). THG owns The Hut Group, which operates as a multi-website online retailer that provides health, beauty, fashion, lifestyle, and marketplace services. We think THG is an extremely compelling company that is only just beginning to develop a differentiated enterprise e-commerce platform to help brands and retailers build a global online direct-to-consumer footprint.
We initiated a position in Boohoo, a UK-based online fashion retailer that exclusively sells its own brands. We think Boohoo has an attractive business that offers a sizeable opportunity for further market share gains in Europe and the U.S. over the long term given the accelerated shift to online, an effective marketing and customer acquisition strategy, strong product and supply chain management, and a top-notch management team.

Materials

The coronavirus-induced economic downturn has, not surprisingly, had a negative impact on the materials sector. Historically, the time to increase exposure to materials is during a recession and we added several high-quality names that were out of favor between the first and second quarters. However, a number of those names performed extremely well, so we exited our positions in the third quarter as valuations became more reasonable. Our focus is mainly on high-quality companies that offer particularly attractive valuations and are more highly correlated to staples-like industries and secular growth trends, but we also have exposure to metals and mining companies as well.

We eliminated our position in Kirkland Lake Gold. The stock has done well and provided solid exposure to real commodities, but we chose to move on after strong performance to reallocate to names with greater upside potential.
We added a position in Lundin Mining, a Canadian base metals miner mainly focused on copper. As the best conductor of electricity, we think the demand for copper will remain strong for the foreseeable future given the growing electrification of the world driven by technology (electric vehicles, charging stations, power generation, etc.). We think it is beneficial to have exposure to metals with strong demand and an improving cost curve.

31-Mar-2021 - Scott Berg, Portfolio Manager,

In our view, there are more coronavirus beneficiaries in the consumer discretionary sector than anywhere else, but this has led to a dramatic demarcation between winners and losers. COVID-19 has pulled forward years of e-commerce share gains in the span of a few months and we have an expanded and diverse set of names levered to that trend. We think the market is underestimating the profound effect the pandemic has had on the consumer landscape. It is now vital for companies to view their businesses through an omnichannel lens and no longer an option to ignore the need for an online presence.

31-Mar-2021 - Scott Berg, Portfolio Manager,

We participated in the initial public offering for Coupang, South Korea's largest e-commerce platform. We believe the company will grow much larger in South Korea over time as it continues to disrupt offline commerce by offering consumers faster delivery, more selections, and lower prices. The firm has heavily invested in logistics and technology, which has created a strong moat that makes its strategy difficult to follow by competitors. The company is also expanding into food delivery, which could be another driver of growth in the future.
We eliminated our position in Jollibee Foods, the dominant quick-service restaurant operator in the Philippines. This is a name we have owned in the portfolio for years as we like the company's exposure to the demographic growth trends in the region. However, the country is still struggling with pandemic-related headwinds, and with our outlook for the company more opaque, we chose to exit our position.
We continue to have a core position in Amazon.com. While many investors are debating how much further the stock has to run given its impressive performance in 2020, we still think the extraordinary long-run e-commerce trends that have been pulled forward by the pandemic, as well as the company's strong position in cloud computing via its Amazon Web Services, mean Amazon.com is still well positioned for growth over the long term.
Quidel is a manufacturer of diagnostic health care products and rapid diagnostic testing products. The company has benefited from strong demand for its rapid point-of-care coronavirus antigen diagnostics test, but the stock has recently suffered due to durability concerns following the rollout of several coronavirus vaccines. We initiated a position on weakness, as we believe that Quidel is poised to emerge from the pandemic with a higher earnings base. We also maintain a favorable view of the company's pipeline.
We started a position in Welltower, a real estate investment trust that works with senior housing operators, post-acute providers, and health systems to fund real estate and infrastructure needed to scale innovative care delivery models. We believe Welltower could emerge from the pandemic stronger given its favorable liquidity profile and the likelihood for significantly increased demand for senior housing in the coming years. In addition, the company's recent purchases of distressed senior housing could add value over time.
We initiated a position in KE Holdings, the leading property online and offline brokerage platform in China. The company operates a disruptive platform called Agent Cooperation Network, which is similar to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) used by realtors in the U.S. KE Holdings is rapidly gaining market share and stands to benefit from strong growth in China's real estate market and the increased adoption of brokers for new home sales by property developers.
We eliminated our stake in Monolithic Power Systems, an analog semiconductor company focused on power management. This high-quality company, which has differentiated technology, high customer service, and good free cash flow generation, features diversity in product wins across multiple industries and a highly fragmented customer base. However, share prices have appreciated recently due to the company's strong relative performance, and we shifted the sale proceeds into names with less demanding valuations.
We eliminated our position in Temenos, which packages back-end software for banks. This is a name we have owned for some time, and with the stock spiking late in the period, we chose to exit our position in favor of names where we have stronger conviction.

31-Mar-2021 - Scott Berg, Portfolio Manager,

Shares of Brazilian payment processing company StoneCo fell amid the ongoing political and health crises in Brazil as most of the country was in lockdown by March. We continue to believe that StoneCo, which is attacking a huge market ripe for disruption, is in a good position to gain share. With a strong management team and proven execution, the company operates a highly service-oriented model and is introducing cutting-edge technology into Brazil's payments market. Moreover, longer term, we have conviction that StoneCo is poised to transform into a full-service, one-stop multichannel financial services platform for small and medium-sized businesses in Brazil.
Shares of Zalando, Europe's leading online apparel retailer, fell on news that Swedish investment firm Kinnevik would be selling its substantial stake in the company. The stock was also swept up in the broader factor rotation away from secular growth names that had been COVID-19 beneficiaries. Near the end of the period, Zalando reported strong earnings results and the stock rose, though not enough to offset losses experienced earlier in the quarter. We have high conviction in Zalando and believe it has a long runway for success given its substantial leads in terms of scale, distribution, brand relationships, technology, and operational efficiency. It has also been expanding into a third-party marketplace platform with its Partner Program, which is growing rapidly.
Private Indian bank Kotak Mahindra traded down over the period as rising COVID-19 cases in the region led to concerns about India's economic recovery. We think Kotak Mahindra Bank is one of the highest-quality banks in India led by a solid management team, with a strong underwriting culture and a transparent and disciplined loan mix.
Despite investments in e-commerce weighing on the bottom line, shares of Sea grinded higher thanks to better-than-expected guidance, particularly from its gaming division, as the company's "Free Fire" title continues to accumulate users, while strong execution is driving improving profitability. We believe Sea's platform is well positioned to gain share in Southeast Asia's high-margin online gaming market, with additional growth supported by an underappreciated consumer-to-consumer e-commerce marketplace with improving monetization trends.

Benchmark Data Source: MSCI. MSCI index returns are shown with reinvestment of dividends after the deduction of withholding taxes. MSCI and its affiliates and third party sources and providers (collectively, “MSCI”) makes no express or implied warranties or representations and shall have no liability whatsoever with respect to any MSCI data contained herein. The MSCI data may not be further redistributed or used as a basis for other indices or any securities or financial products. This report is not approved, reviewed, or produced by MSCI. Historical MSCI data and analysis should not be taken as an indication or guarantee of any future performance analysis, forecast or prediction. None of the MSCI data is intended to constitute investment advice or a recommendation to make (or refrain from making) any kind of investment decision and may not be relied on as such.

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

Source for performance: T. Rowe Price. Fund performance is calculated using the official NAV with dividends reinvested, if any. The value of an investment and any income from it can go down as well as up. Investors may get back less than the amount invested. It will be affected by changes in the exchange rate between the base currency of the fund and the subscription currency, if different. Sales charges (up to a maximum of 5% for the A Class), taxes and other locally applied costs have not been deducted and if applicable, they will reduce the performance figures.

Daily performance data is based on the latest available NAV.

The Funds are sub-funds of the T. Rowe Price Funds SICAV, a Luxembourg investment company with variable capital which is registered with Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier and which qualifies as an undertaking for collective investment in transferable securities (“UCITS”). Full details of the objectives, investment policies and risks are located in the prospectus which is available with the key investor information documents and/or key information document (KID) in English and in an official language of the jurisdictions in which the Funds are registered for public sale, together with the articles of incorporation and the annual and semi-annual reports (together “Fund Documents”). Any decision to invest should be made on the basis of the Fund Documents which are available free of charge from the local representative, local information/paying agent or from authorised distributors. They can also be found along with a summary of investor rights in English at www.troweprice.com. The Management Company reserves the right to terminate marketing arrangements.

Please note that the Fund typically has a risk of high volatility.

The specific securities identified and described in this website do not represent all of the securities purchased, sold, or recommended for the sub-fund and no assumptions should be made that the securities identified and discussed were or will be profitable.

A full list of the currently issued Share Classes including Distributing, Hedged, and Accumulating Categories may be obtained, free of charge and upon request, from the registered office of the Company.

Industrials and Business Services

Financials

Consumer Discretionary

Materials

Risks

Typical Investor