Parnassus Workplace Fund

Fund Overview

It began as a little experiment. What if companies recognized for being great places to work actually did better financially, too? It seemed like a no-brainer to fund manager Jerome Dodson and when he set up the Workplace Fund in 2005, he made a firm’s reputation as a good work environment a deciding factor in his investment choices.

As of April 04, 2012, the fund has assets totaling almost $245.79 million invested in 35 different holdings. Its portfolio primarily consists of medium- to mega-cap domestic stocks.

Throughout 2010, the fund lagged behind the S&P 500 in large part due to weak performance by its holdings in Qualcomm and eBay. Despite the negative impact on the fund, Dodson told shareholders that he’ll hold onto the stocks for now – he expects Qualcomm to get a boost in revenue and earnings from increased handset sales and says eBay’s stock is trading at bargain levels. As of September 2010, he has no plans to increase the fund’s holdings in either company.

Lately, Dodson likes Adobe, he and added the California-based software company to his fund’s holdings in late September 2010. “They’re a very good company in terms of workplace and they have a lot of respect for the individual there,” Dodson says. “Before it was overvalued but now when it drops 20 percent it becomes a bargain in our opinion.” The fund has returned 7.30 percent over the past year and 27.79 percent over the past three years.

The fund has fared well over the long term, returning 9.07 percent over the past five years.

Investment Strategy

Dodson aims to invest at least 80 percent of the fund’s assets in ethical companies he believes to provide good workplaces for their employees. “It made a lot of intuitive sense to me that companies that treat their employees well should in return get good efforts from their employees and they should be more successful as a business,” Dodson says. “That was the theory.” While most of his picks come from old-fashioned research, Dodson does consider annual rankings from Fortune and Working Mother. But he won’t overpay for that feather in a company’s cap. As he’s done with Adobe, Dodson will wait patiently until a company lands in the fund’s desired price range. As a result, although it’s usually grouped with large growth funds, the Parnassus Workplace Fund tends to have a bias toward value stocks.

Role in Portfolio

Morningstar has not assigned a role to this fund.

Management

Jerome Dodson, president and chairman of Parnassus Investments, has managed the Workplace Fund since its 2005 inception. He also oversees the Parnassus Fund and the Parnassus Small-Cap Fund. Prior to founding Parnassus Investments in 1984, he served as President and CEO of Continental Savings of America.

Performance

The fund has returned 7.30 percent over the past year, 27.79 percent over the past three years, and 9.07 percent over the past five years.

Hypothetical Growth of $10,000

Updated 03.31.2012

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Holdings

The fund holds domestic, mostly large-cap stocks in the information technology and service industries. Dodson considers a company’s reputation as a “good” place to work as part of his unique screening process for potential stock investments.

Asset Allocation

	% Long	% Net
Cash	8.45	8.45
Stocks	91.55	91.55
Bonds	0.0	0.0
Other	0.0	0.0
Foreign Bonds	0.0	0.0
Foreign Stocks	0.0	0.0
Convertible	0.0	0.0
Preferred	0.0	0.0

Updated 02.29.2012

Top Holdings

Performance as of 03.31.2012

Portfolio as of 02.29.2012

	Ticker	YTD Return %	% Net Assets
Cisco Systems Inc	CSCO	17.53	4.96
Wells Fargo & Co	WFC	26.02	4.63
Qualcomm, Inc.	QCOM	25.69	4.6
Intel Corp	INTC	17.9	4.55
Target Corp	TGT	14.39	4.19

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Fees

Parnassus Workplace Fund has an expense ratio of 1.16 percent.

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Risk

As with all stock funds, market fluctuations might impact returns.

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