KCESX — Knights of Columbus Long/Short Equity Fund
Data updated: 2026-09-29
KCESX — Knights of Columbus Long/Short Equity Fund. Long-Short · $302.95M AUM · 2.18% expense ratio. Holdings, fees, performance and SEC filings.
KCESX Fund Overview
KCESX — Knights of Columbus Long/Short Equity Fund is a US mutual fund managed by Advisors' Inner Circle Fund III, categorised as Long-Short. ABC INVEST provides holdings, performance, costs, cashflows, risk data, prospectus documents and SEC filings, sourced from SEC filings.
- Type: US mutual fund
- Manager: Advisors' Inner Circle Fund III
- Category: Long-Short
- Assets under management: $302.95M
- Ticker: KCESX
- SEC CIK: 0001593547
- SEC series ID: S000066638
- Share class ID: C000214841
KCESX Investment Objective and Strategy
Knights of Columbus Long/Short Equity Fund describes its objective and strategy as follows, from its latest prospectus filed with the SEC by Advisors' Inner Circle Fund III.
Investment objective
The Knights of Columbus Long/Short Equity Fund (the Long/Short Equity Fund or the Fund) seeks long-term capital appreciation.
Principal investment strategy
Under normal circumstances, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets, plus any borrowings for investment purposes, in long and short positions in equity securities. This investment policy can be changed by the Fund upon 60 days prior written notice to shareholders. The equity securities in which the Fund invests are primarily common stocks of large-capitalization U.S. companies and derivatives with economic characteristics similar to such securities. The Fund considers a large-capitalization company to be a company with a market capitalization above the 70th percentile of the market capitalization of companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) (approximately $12.5 billion as of January 31, 2026). The Fund takes long and short positions in equity securities. A long position arises where the Fund holds a security in its portfolio or maintains a position through a derivative instrument that provides economic exposure similar to direct ownership of the security.
Short positions generally involve selling a security not held within the portfolio in anticipation that the securitys price will decline or entering into a derivative instrument that provides economic exposure similar to a short sale of the security. To complete a short sale transaction, the Fund typically must borrow the stock to make delivery to the buyer. The Fund then would be obligated to replace the stock borrowed by purchasing the stock at the market price at the time of replacement. The price at such time may be higher or lower than the price at which the stock was sold short by the Fund. The Fund will be managed with a net long exposure bias, but has the ability to have net short exposure. The Fund may hold a substantial portion of its total assets in cash when it holds significant short positions.
In addition to investing in derivatives to take long and short positions, the Fund may also invest in derivatives for hedging or risk management purposes. The derivatives in which the Fund principally invests are options and swaps. The Fund seeks to make investment decisions consistent with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Socially Responsible Investing Guidelines (the USCCB Guidelines), and therefore, the Fund is designed to avoid investments in companies that are believed to be involved with abortion, contraception, pornography, stem cell research/human cloning, weapons of mass destruction, or other enterprises that conflict with the USCCB Guidelines. As part of the screening process for the Fund, the Adviser uses information from a third-party environmental, social, and governance research firm and consults with experts to assess the policies and practices of companies based on the criteria set forth in the USCCB Guidelines.
Based on such assessments, the Adviser compiles and maintains a list of companies that it determines to be inconsistent with the USCCB Guidelines (the Restricted Securities List). The Fund seeks to avoid investments in companies identified through this process. The policies and practices of the companies selected for the Fund are monitored for various issues contemplated by the USCCB Guidelines. If L2 Asset Management, LLC (L2 Asset Management or the Sub-Adviser), the Funds sub-adviser, becomes aware that the Fund is invested in a company whose policies and practices are inconsistent with the USCCB Guidelines, the Sub-Adviser may sell the companys securities or otherwise exclude future investments in such company. Although the Fund is designed to avoid taking long positions in the equity securities of such companies, the Fund may, consistent with the USCCB Guidelines, take short positions in the equity securities of such companies.
The criteria used to screen out companies for the Fund may be modified from time to time to seek to maintain alignment with any changes to the USCCB Guidelines. In selecting investments to buy and sell for the Fund, the Sub-Adviser utilizes a hybrid quantitative and fundamental investment process to seek to identify atypically high-quality companies for their level of market valuation. Stocks are evaluated by the Sub-Adviser on many variables that can be classified broadly into various categories, including valuation and earnings quality. Valuation contains traditional measures such as the dividend-to-price ratio and the earnings-to-price ratio, and earnings quality is used to assess the quality of earnings using measures such as accounting accruals and inventory turnover. Other variables focus on measures of analysts forecasts, balance sheet quality, market movements and return patterns including short and long-term price momentum.
The Fund may focus its investments in one or more sectors. Due to its investment strategy, the Fund may buy and sell securities frequently.
KCESX Holdings
Top 10 holdings of Knights of Columbus Long/Short Equity Fund by percentage of net assets, from the fund's latest SEC N-PORT filing.
| Holding | % of net assets |
|---|---|
| Janus Henderson AAA CLO ETF | 4.11% |
| Pgim Aaa Clo ETF | 4.11% |
| Ameriprise Financial, Inc. | 2.15% |
| Netapp, Inc. | 2.11% |
| Cf Industries Holdings, Inc. | 2.08% |
| Airbnb, Inc. | 2.05% |
| Logitech international S.A. | 2.05% |
| Synchrony Financial | 2.04% |
| Amgen Inc. | 2.02% |
| Jazz Pharmaceuticals Public Limited Company | 2.00% |
KCESX Portfolio Allocation
Asset-class allocation of Knights of Columbus Long/Short Equity Fund by percentage of net assets, from the latest SEC N-PORT filing.
| Asset class | Allocation |
|---|---|
| Equity | 78.0% |
| Cash & Equivalents | 60.9% |
KCESX Performance
Total returns for KCESX (as of 2026-10-01), from SEC filings.
| Period | Total return |
|---|---|
| YTD | 12.8% |
| 1 year | 16.8% |
| 3 years (annualised) | 11.3% |
| 5 years (annualised) | 10.5% |
KCESX Risk Information
Risk metrics for KCESX, derived from monthly returns in SEC filings.
- 1-year volatility (annualised): 4.1%
KCESX Costs and Fees
KCESX costs about $218 per $10,000 invested per year in fund expenses.
- Net expense ratio: 2.18%
- Gross expense ratio: 2.18%
- Portfolio turnover: 110%
- Brokerage commissions: 17.71 bps of average net assets (SEC N-CEN)
KCESX Cashflows
Over the 12 months to 2026-04, Knights of Columbus Long/Short Equity Fund had net inflows of $50.72M, from monthly SEC N-PORT filings.
| Month | Net flow |
|---|---|
| 2026-04 | $8.76M |
| 2026-03 | $4.90M |
| 2026-02 | −$87.16K |
| 2026-01 | $8.94M |
| 2025-12 | $4.49M |
| 2025-11 | $2.38M |
KCESX Debt Constituents
No individual debt constituents are reported in Knights of Columbus Long/Short Equity Fund's latest SEC N-PORT filing.
KCESX Prospectus and SEC Filings
Official Knights of Columbus Long/Short Equity Fund filings on SEC EDGAR — prospectus, portfolio holdings and annual reports.
- Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2026-02-27
- Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2025-02-28
- Prospectus supplement (497) — filed 2025-01-03
- Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2026-09-29
- Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2026-06-25
- Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2026-03-27
- Annual census (N-CEN) — filed 2026-01-13
- Annual census (N-CEN) — filed 2025-01-13
Related Funds
Other Long-Short funds tracked on ABC INVEST:
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.