Virtus Westchester Credit Event Fd USD Class INST (WCFIX) Exchange: NMFQS

Under normal market conditions, the Fund will invest principally in fixed income investments and other investments related to specific events or catalysts that the Adviser expects will cause material credit events or similar situations (referred to as “credit event opportunities”), such as capital structure arbitrage, mergers and acquisitions, spin-offs, credit restructurings, IPOs of debt, re-financings, debt maturities, asset monetizations, and other restructurings.  The Fund may also invest in securities of late-stage distressed issuers, issuers involved in pre- and post-bankruptcy proceedings, special purpose acquisition companies, and similar investment opportunities.  The Fund seeks to make investments that the Adviser believes will appreciate in value or in certain instances, like with respect to debt securities, will result in the right to repayment being satisfied before the stated maturity date due to, among other things, completed transactions, re-capitalizations, debt retirement, and restructurings. In making investment decisions, the Adviser may also consider the income that can be earned on an investment until the time a credit event opportunity is expected to be realized.In implementing the Fund’s principal investment strategies, the Fund may invest in a wide variety of investments, such as bonds and other debt securities of any kind (including, among others, corporate debt obligations, including defaulted securities and obligations of distressed issuers), loans, preferred stock and other preferred securities, convertible bonds, high-yield securities, structured credit securities, initial public offerings, closed-end funds and other pooled investment vehicles, credit default swaps, equity linked notes and derivative instruments of any kind, including options, swaps and structured notes, and other similar securities. The Fund also may invest in leveraged loans. Leveraged loans include loans extended to an entity that already has considerable amounts of debt (or will after the borrowing).  Leveraged loans may be issued in connection with leveraged buyout transactions and may involve limited or no covenant protections for the benefit of those who the borrower is obligated to repay at maturity, such as the Fund. The Adviser seeks to invest in attractive credit-event related opportunities of any kind.  Accordingly, the Fund may invest in foreign issuers and securities without limit.  Also, the Fund may invest in debt instruments of any duration or credit quality, including high yield debt (commonly referred to as “junk” bonds), distressed debt and defaulted debt. These securities are speculative investments that carry greater risks and are more susceptible to real or perceived adverse economic and competitive industry conditions than higher quality investments. While there are no limits on the Fund’s weighted average duration, the Adviser generally will target a portfolio with a short to medium term effective duration of less than 7 years. When the Adviser believes there are sufficient attractive investment opportunities, the Adviser may make investments that involve the use of investment leverage.  The Fund may use derivative instruments, short sale positions, repurchase agreements, reverse repurchase agreements, credit facilities and other means to create investment exposure or leverage and the Fund’s total notional (that is, investment) exposure may exceed its net assets significantly. Among the investment strategies the Adviser may use on behalf of the Fund are the following: •Special Situations Strategy: The Fund may invest in the securities of issuers based upon the expectation of the Adviser that the price of such securities may change in the short term due to a special situation, such as spinoffs and split-offs, re-capitalization, credit rating upgrade, debt repayment, the outcome of litigation or other dispute, a positive earnings report, legislative or regulatory changes or other catalyst-driven event. The Fund may seek to profit from special situations by employing one or more arbitrage sub-strategies, including, but not limited to, capital structure arbitrage and convertible arbitrage, or the Fund may seek to use such strategies independently.•Capital Structure Arbitrage: Capital structure arbitrage is an investment strategy that seeks to profit from relative pricing discrepancies between related securities, such as securities of different classes issued by the same issuer.  For example, when the Adviser believes that unsecured securities are overvalued in relation to senior secured securities of the same issuer, the Fund may purchase senior secured securities of the issuer and take a short position in the unsecured securities of the same issuer. In this example, the trade may be profitable if credit quality spreads widen or if the issuer goes bankrupt and the recovery rate for the senior debt is higher than the expectations implicit in the prices of the securities at the time the Fund established its positions.•Convertible Arbitrage: Convertible arbitrage is a strategy that seeks to profit from mispricings between an issuer’s convertible securities and the underlying equity securities. A common convertible arbitrage approach matches a long position in a convertible security with a short position in the underlying common stock when an investor believes the convertible security is undervalued relative to the value of the underlying equity security. In such a case, the investor may seek to sell short shares of the underlying common stock in order to hedge exposure to the issuer of the equity securities.  Convertible arbitrage positions may be designed to earn income from coupon or dividend payments on the investment in the convertible securities.•Distressed/Restructuring Strategies: The Fund may invest in securities, including debt securities, of financially distressed companies and companies undergoing or expected to undergo bankruptcy or other insolvency proceedings.  The Fund may invest in corporate bonds, privately held loans and other securities or obligations of companies that are highly leveraged, are experiencing financial difficulties or have filed for bankruptcy. The Fund may profit from its investments in such issuers if the issuer undergoes a successful restructuring or recapitalization, undertakes asset sales or participates in spin-off transactions.  The Fund may also purchase securities in anticipation of a company’s recovery or turnaround or the liquidation of all or some of the company’s assets.•Options Strategies:  The Fund may sell or buy call or put options on its portfolio securities.  The Fund may also sell or buy options on one or more stocks or bonds or on a basket of stocks or bonds, including those of issuers in the same industry or industry sub-group.  The Adviser may determine to sell or purchase securities and sell or buy options on those shares at approximately the same time, although options trades on the Fund’s portfolio securities may occur at any time or not at all.  The Adviser may utilize option strategies at any time, including in a relatively flat or declining market environment, for hedging or investment purposes. The Fund may utilize other options strategies, such as writing options on securities it does not currently own (known as “uncovered” options), buying or selling options when the Adviser believes they may be mispriced or may provide attractive opportunities to earn income, or engaging in risk-reversal transactions.  In a risk-reversal transaction, the Adviser may buy put options and sell call options against a long stock position. •Merger-Arbitrage Strategy: The Fund may purchase the securities of companies that are involved in publicly announced mergers, takeovers and other corporate reorganizations, and use one or more arbitrage strategies in connection with the purchase.  Merger-arbitrage is a highly specialized investment approach generally designed to profit from the successful completion of such transactions.  Although a variety of strategies may be employed depending upon the nature of the reorganizations selected for investment, the simplest form of merger-arbitrage activity involves purchasing the shares of an announced acquisition target at a discount to their expected value upon completion of the acquisition.  The size of this discount, known as the arbitrage “spread,” may represent the Fund’s potential profit on such an investment.  The success of the merger-arbitrage strategy depends on, among other things, the Adviser’s correct evaluation of the outcome of the event-driven opportunity because the Adviser typically seeks to establish one or more investment positions that will benefit from the completion of the merger, takeover or other reorganization.  The Fund may employ a variety of hedging strategies to seek to protect against issuer-related risk, including selling short the securities of the company that proposes to acquire the target company and/or the purchase and sale of put and call options. (To sell a security short, the Fund may borrow the security from a broker or other counterparty and sell it to a third party.  The Fund is obligated to return the same number of securities it borrowed from the broker back to the broker at a later date to close out the short position, at which point in time those securities may have a value that is greater or lesser than the price at which the short sale was established.)•Investments in SPACs: The Fund may invest significantly in the common stock of and other interests (e.g., warrants) in special purpose acquisition companies or similar special purpose entities that pool funds to seek potential acquisition opportunities (collectively, “SPACs”).  A SPAC investment typically represents an investment in a special purpose vehicle that seeks to identify and effect an acquisition of, or merger with, an operating company in a particular industry or sector.  During the period when management of the SPAC seeks to identify a potential acquisition or merger target, typically most of the capital raised for that purpose (less a portion retained to cover expenses) is invested in income-producing investments.  The Fund may invest in SPACs for a variety of investment purposes, including to achieve income.  Some SPACs provide the opportunity for common shareholders to have some or all of their shares redeemed by the SPAC at or around the time a proposed merger or acquisition is expected to occur.  The Fund may sell its investments in SPACs at any time, including before, at or after the time of a merger or acquisition.•Other Strategies:  In addition to the above principal investment strategies, the Fund’s Adviser may invest in other investments or utilize other strategies, including non-credit related event-driven and market neutral strategies. A market neutral strategy is a type of investment strategy that seeks to profit irrespective of whether prices of securities in the market more generally are broadly increasing or decreasing.  The performance of a successfully implemented market neutral strategy should have relatively low levels of correlation to the performance of the market overall, though under certain conditions the performance of many asset classes and investment strategies, including market neutral strategies, have become highly correlated with the broader market, and may become so again. The Fund may also invest in issuers to capture special dividends or other special distributions. The success of any strategy employed by the Fund’s Adviser will largely depend upon, among other things, the Adviser’s skill in evaluating the likelihood of the successful completion of a particular catalyst or a related event. The Fund may also invest in other investment companies and exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”), closed-end funds and open-end mutual funds, among others, including pooled investment vehicles sponsored by the Adviser.  Those investments may be made for the purpose of, among other things, gaining or hedging market exposure, hedging exposure to a particular industry, sector or component of an event-driven opportunity, managing the Fund’s cash position, or obtaining credit exposure to other event-driven strategies when the Adviser determines there are insufficient attractive credit-event related investment opportunities. The Fund may use derivative instruments of any kind to seek to take advantage of attractive credit-event related opportunities it identifies.  For example, the Fund may use derivative instruments, such as credit default swaps, because they represent the most efficient way to gain long or short exposure to one or more identified credit-related investment opportunities, issuers or asset classes.  The Fund may also invest in derivative instruments, such as interest rate swaps, for hedging, duration management, volatility management and other risk management purposes. The Fund may also loan portfolio securities to earn income. The Fund is non-diversified, which means that it can invest a greater percentage of its assets in any one issuer or a smaller number of issuers than a diversified fund.  Although there are no constraints on the number of credit event opportunities the Fund may have exposure to, the Fund expects to have exposure to between 20 to 40 credit event-related opportunities under normal circumstances.  The Fund normally expects to engage in active and frequent trading and expects to have a high rate of portfolio turnover.