HEARTLAND ADVISORS INC

Heartland Advisors Inc. is an investment management firm based out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The company was established in 1983 and has grown to have 49 employees led by CEO William R. Nasgovitz. Heartland Advisors conducts its research internally, utilizing a fundamental and technical methodology with a bottom up investment approach to make its investment decisions. The company invests in the hedging and public equity markets within the U.S., focusing on security evaluations through its 10 principles of value investing that are designed to identify companies priced at a discount to their intrinsic value. Heartland Advisors invests most heavily in the industrials sector, which alone makes up over a quarter of its total asset allocations, and also invests in the finance, consumer discretionary, information technology, energy, health care, and materials sectors, among others to a lesser degree, in order of decreasing allocation. None of the company’s holdings exceed 3% of its total holdings and the company’s top 10 holdings together make up less than a fifth of its total. Heartland Advisors has a turnover rate of approximately 17%. The company holds over $5.3 billion in total assets under management spread across over 430 accounts, all of which are discretionary accounts. Although Heartland Advisors’s total number of accounts has been somewhat volatile in recent years, being as low as 360 five years ago to as high as 530 in 2012, its total assets under management has been increasing, growing significantly from $2.3 billion back in 2010 to well over twice that amount today. The company mainly caters to individuals, which alone makes up over half of its client base, and also provides services to high net worth individuals, pension and profit sharing plans, charities, investment companies, corporations, and others. Heartland Advisors offers its Select Value, Value, Value Plus, Mid Cap Value, and International Value mutual funds.