What is the GuideStone manager-of-managers approach?

Investing for retirement and other financial goals is essential to planning for your future. At GuideStone^®, we recognize your investment choices play a pivotal role in helping you reach your financial goals. That’s why we offer a comprehensive lineup of diversified mutual funds across most major asset classes — the GuideStone Funds^®.

Central to our investment methodology is the utilization of a “manager-of-managers” approach. This means that GuideStone Capital Management, LLC (GSCM), the adviser to GuideStone Funds, delegates day-to-day investment decisions to “sub-advisers”. These sub-advisers are seasoned investment professionals who specialize in particular asset classes, sectors or investment styles and combining their expertise may enhance diversification and potentially improve Fund performance. This approach allows GSCM to make more informed and strategic decisions for a Fund’s overall investment strategy while connecting you as an investor to some of the industry’s strongest institutional management talent.

To select the right sub-advisers, we have leveraged our investment expertise and decades of experience to establish a disciplined and robust due diligence process, reviewing candidates’ qualitative and quantitative characteristics. We use comprehensive research technologies and, just as importantly, personal interactions and interviews with prospective sub-advisers.

Through this process, we will assess a potential sub-adviser’s competitive advantages over other candidates. We review the entire company infrastructure and its business model, then drill down and analyze the specific investment team handling the resources we would allocate to them. We strive to understand the consistency and repeatability of its investment strategy, including conducting a fundamental analysis of performance and risk management factors.

Once we’ve selected a potential candidate (or candidates), the process of fund optimization begins. This is where we analyze various sub-adviser combinations across historical time periods to evaluate hypothetical Fund performance and characteristics against targeted objectives. Using holdings-based analytics and risk-factor decomposition, we also construct forecasts to anticipate how various manager composites may perform in the future. We select the sub-adviser combination that aligns with a Funds’ risk and return profile with the goal of providing attractive risk-adjusted returns.

Our multibillion-dollar asset base allows us to develop a custom investment agreement that includes our faith-based investing mandates and negotiate fees with each sub-adviser — typically resulting in material discounts from standard fee levels.

GuideStone’s commitment to serving you is rooted in our Christian values. Investing is not just about securing a comfortable future but also about stewarding God-given resources wisely. Through our affiliates, you have access to a range of mutual funds, retirement plans, IRAs and investment accounts, and advisory services tailored to meet the diverse needs of investors, utilizing the best-in-class sub-advisers available and incorporating biblical principles.