Changes to the Sun Life Multi-Strategy Canadian Equity and the Sun Life Multi-Strategy Global Equity Segregated Funds

No action required

You don’t have to take any action as a result of the update below. Please review the details about the changes to the Sun Life Multi-Strategy Canadian Equity (“Canadian Equity fund”) and Sun Life Multi-Strategy Global Equity Segregated Funds (“Global Equity fund”).

Sun Life Global Investments (“SLGI”) uses various underlying investment managers to manage the Multi-Strategy Funds. In April 2026, SLGI is making the following changes.

Canadian Equity fund changes

SLGI is decreasing the exposure to passive investments by 10% and is increasing exposure to actively managed funds. In addition, SLGI is replacing the underlying BlackRock Canadian Equity Index fund with the Sun Life State Street Canadian Equity Index fund.  The specific changes are below:

SLGI believes these changes will improve risk-adjusted returns.

The benchmark for the Canadian Equity fund remains the S&P/TSX Capped Composite Index.

Global Equity fund changes

SLGI will increase the exposure to U.S. Equities and decrease International Equities. SLGI will also re-allocate the International Equities exposure to two new underlying funds. The specific changes are below:

SLGI believes that the increase in U.S. Equities from 50% to 65% reflects the growth in U.S. market capitalization and improves alignment with the fund’s MSCI All-Country World Index (ACWI) benchmark. As of December 31, 2025, U.S. Equities represented 64% of the MSCI ACWI.

There is an equivalent decrease in International Equities from 40% to 30%. There is also a 5% decrease in the allocation to the Sun Life Schroder Emerging Markets fund.

SLGI has also made mandate changes within International Equities. SLGI removed the Sun Life JP Morgan International Equity fund in October 2025. They have replaced this fund with equal allocations of 15% each to two new active International Equity strategies, namely the Sun Life MFS International Opportunities and Sun Life Acadian International Equity. SLGI cited the reason for the two new funds as style diversification. Sun Life MFS International Opportunities is managed in a Growth style using fundamental research, while Sun Life Acadian International Equity is managed in a Value style, using quantitative modelling. Both new funds invest in Emerging Markets. Despite the 5% reduction to Sun Life Schroder Emerging Markets, the overall allocation to Emerging Markets is expected to be greater than the MSCI ACWI benchmark weighting.

The benchmark for the Global Equity fund remains the MSCI ACWI (Net) in Canadian dollars.

GRS Investment Solutions View

We are comfortable with the changes that SLGI have made to the Canadian Equity and Global Equity Multi-Strategy funds. Over the long-term, active management in Canadian Equity has historically added value, and a higher weighting to active mandates could be beneficial to risk-adjusted performance going forward. For the Global Equity fund, the significant allocation to passive management within U.S. Equities provides a cost-effective approach in a market where most active managers have struggled to add value. The increased allocation to U.S. Equities reflects changes to global market capitalization over the past decade largely stemming from U.S. equity outperformance. Lastly, splitting International Equities into two style-diversified mandates may improve the consistency of performance. Under the old structure, the Global Equity fund was reliant on the performance of JP Morgan International Equity, which represented over 60% of the active management weighting.

SLGI uses a multi-manager approach for these funds, and like with their Granite funds, is expected to make changes to the underlying components from time to time. We will continue to monitor these changes over time and provide updates as necessary.

Given the investment objectives, benchmarks and other main characteristics of the funds are not changing, we do not plan a member communication for these changes.