Kellner Merger Fund

C000115420 Fund Overview

Kellner Merger Fund is a US mutual fund managed by Advisors Series Trust, categorised as Developed ex-US Blend / Core Equity. ABC INVEST provides holdings, performance, costs, cashflows, risk data, prospectus documents and SEC filings, sourced from SEC filings.

• Type: US mutual fund
• Manager: Advisors Series Trust
• Category: Developed ex-US Blend / Core Equity
• Assets under management: $101.04M
• 1-year return: 0.1%
• SEC CIK: 0001027596
• SEC series ID: S000037381
• Share class ID: C000115420

C000115420 Investment Objective and Strategy

Kellner Merger Fund describes its objective and strategy as follows, from its latest prospectus filed with the SEC by Advisors Series Trust.

Investment objective

"The Kellner Merger Fund (the ""Fund"") seeks to achieve positive risk-adjusted returns with less volatility than in the equity markets."

Principal investment strategy

"Under normal market conditions, the Fund will invest at least 80% of its net assets in equity securities and related derivatives of U.S. and foreign companies that are involved in publicly announced mergers, takeovers, tender offers, leveraged buyouts, spin-offs, liquidations and other corporate reorganizations (collectively, ""Merger Transactions""). The types of equity securities in which the Fund primarily invests include common stocks and preferred stocks of any size market capitalization. The Fund may have significant exposure to one or more economic sectors of the market. For example, as of December 31, 2017, approximately 35% of the Fund's net assets were invested in securities within the manufacturing sector. The Fund may invest without limitation in securities of foreign companies.

The Advisor's investment technique, sometimes referred to as ""merger arbitrage,"" is a highly specialized investment approach designed to profit from the successful completion of Merger Transactions. In pursuing its strategy, the Advisor may employ investment techniques that involve leverage (investment exposure which exceeds the initial amount invested), such as short selling, borrowing against a line of credit for investment purposes and purchasing and selling derivative instruments including futures, options, swaps, contracts for differences, forward foreign currency contracts and other synthetic instruments. The Fund may employ these investment techniques without limit, subject to the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the ""1940 Act""). The approach most frequently utilized by the Fund involves purchasing the shares of an announced acquisition target company at a discount to its expected value upon completion of the acquisition.

A short sale is the sale by the Fund of a security which it does not own in anticipation of purchasing the same security in the future at a lower price to close the short position. The Advisor may engage in selling securities short under certain circumstances, such as when the terms of a proposed acquisition call for the exchange of common stock and/or other securities. In such a case, the common stock of the company to be acquired may be purchased and, at approximately the same time, an equivalent amount of the acquiring company's common stock and/or other securities may be sold short. The Fund may enter into equity swap agreements, forms of derivatives, for the purpose of attempting to obtain a desired return on, or increased exposure to, certain equity securities or equity indices. Swap agreements are two party contracts for periods ranging from a few days or weeks to more than one year.

In a standard total return ""swap"" transaction, two parties agree to exchange the returns which might be earned or realized on particular investments or instruments or a basket of investments or instruments. The parties do not actually invest in or own the underlying securities or instruments that are the subject of the swap contract. Under such a swap agreement, the Fund pays the other party to the agreement (a ""swap counterparty"") fees plus an amount equal to any negative total returns from the underlying investments specified in the swap agreement. In exchange, the counterparty pays the Fund an amount equal to any positive total returns from the stipulated underlying investments. The Advisor employs a research-driven process that aims to identify investment opportunities with favorable risk/reward trade-offs within the following guidelines: 1) Securities are evaluated for purchase after the public announcement of a corporate event or restructuring.

2) Proprietary analysis is done to consider the strategic rationale of the transaction, the financial resources of the parties involved and the liquidity of the securities. 3) Securities are typically purchased if the Advisor believes the potential return from its investment sufficiently compensates the Fund in light of the risks involved, including the risk that the transaction may not be completed and the length of time until completion of the transaction. 4) The potential risk/reward of the position is assessed on an ongoing basis and continuously monitored. Most of the Fund's positions are held until the completion of the transaction. Positions may be sold prior to the completion of the transaction when the companies involved in the transaction no longer meet the Fund's expected return criteria taking into account prevailing market prices and the relative risk of the transaction.

The Advisor expects that the Fund's active or frequent trading of portfolio securities may result in a portfolio turnover rate in excess of 100% on an annual basis. The Fund is non-diversified, which means that it can invest a greater percentage of its assets in any one issuer than a diversified fund. Investing in fewer issuers makes a fund more susceptible to financial, economic or market events impacting such issuers and may cause the Fund's share price to be more volatile than the share price of a diversified fund."

C000115420 Performance

Total returns for C000115420 (as of 2026-10-01), from SEC filings.

C000115420 Risk Information

Risk metrics for C000115420, derived from monthly returns in SEC filings.

• 1-year volatility (annualised): 7.4%

C000115420 Costs and Fees

C000115420 costs about $253 per $10,000 invested per year in fund expenses.

• Net expense ratio: 2.53%
• Gross expense ratio: 2.53%
• Portfolio turnover: 298%
• Brokerage commissions: 8.85 bps of average net assets (SEC N-CEN)

C000115420 Cashflows

Over the 12 months to 2020-12, Kellner Merger Fund had net inflows of $105.06M, from monthly SEC N-PORT filings.

C000115420 Debt Constituents

No individual debt constituents are reported in Kellner Merger Fund's latest SEC N-PORT filing.

C000115420 Prospectus and SEC Filings

Official Kellner Merger Fund filings on SEC EDGAR — prospectus, portfolio holdings and annual reports.

• Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2020-05-20
• Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2019-05-20
• Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2018-05-10
• Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2021-02-16
• Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2020-11-25
• Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2020-08-17
• Annual census (N-CEN) — filed 2021-03-16
• Annual census (N-CEN) — filed 2020-03-16

Related Funds

Other Developed ex-US Blend / Core Equity funds tracked on ABC INVEST:

• State Street International Stock Selection Fund (SSAIX)
• Columbia Pyrford International Stock Fund (PISJX)
• Core Market Neutral Fund (STTKX)
• Long Cramer Tracker ETF (LJIM)
• Baillie Gifford International Smaller Companies Fund (BICKX)

Data Sources

ABC INVEST compiles this page from public filings made to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) through EDGAR: portfolio holdings and monthly cashflows from Form N-PORT, expenses and returns from fund prospectuses (Form 485BPOS) and the SEC DERA Risk/Return Summary data sets, annual data from Form N-CEN, and shareholder reports from Form N-CSR.