Since its founding, Brandywine Global has pursued one investment approach: Value Investing. Through in-depth research studies and practical experience, our founding partners determined that value-style investing—whether in equity or fixed-income markets, domestically or internationally—may provide excellent risk adjusted returns over full investment cycles, and it is a particularly important strategy in today's global markets.
Our early dedication to this approach earned us a reputation as pioneers in the field of Value Investing. Today, our teams of investment professionals take great pride in this designation, and continue to carry on the vision of our founding partners. Even as we embrace this belief, however, we understand that the world is not a static place. Only by being creative and diligent can we continue to strive to identify and capture value across all industries, markets, and time periods with an aim to deliver excellent risk-adjusted, long-term performance.
Over the years, we have undertaken a series of academic studies to strengthen our definition of value and verify the benefits of our investment approach. Our earliest joint studies, performed in conjunction with a prestigious educational institution, confirmed that concentrating on stocks with low price/earnings ratios can produce excellent risk-adjusted returns over full investment cycles for our clients. Similar results were produced when evaluating the small-capitalization segment of the U.S. stock market during the next phase of our research. In our search for additional ways to add value, we analyzed stocks with low price/book and low price/cash-flow ratios and determined that these measures were also useful tools in uncovering value in equity markets. Today, we continue to verify our value measures and explore new ways to identify opportunities for our clients.
At Brandywine Global, we are deeply committed to understanding our clients' needs and vigorously strive to exceed their expectations. We are keenly aware of the importance of client satisfaction to the success of the firm, and as such, we work tirelessly to develop long-term relationships with our clients. We earn their trust and confidence through an unyielding commitment to service and performance, and provide them with a dependable and consistent experience by employing intelligent, honest and sincere professionals that prosper and benefit from our corporate culture.
Our approach to client service emphasizes personalized service and constant communication. Our Portfolio Managers and Client Service Professionals are available to meet as necessary at locations that are convenient for our clients, and Client Service Associates are available to respond to inquiries or requests for information. Our client reporting services, which include a breadth of detailed reports that review critical account information such as quarterly performance, transactions, holdings, characteristics, investment overviews, and more, help to keep our clients abreast of the activity in their accounts. Additionally, our quarterly portfolio manager webcasts help our clients get a deeper understanding of what we do, why we do it, and how it is impacted by market trends.