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Value Line Larger Companies Focused Fund, Inc.
Value Line Larger Companies Focused Fund, Inc.
Investment objective
The Fund’s sole investment objective is long-term growth of capital.
Fees and expenses
This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy and hold shares of the Fund. There are no shareholder fees (fees paid directly from your investment) when you buy and sell shares of the Fund. Future expenses may be greater or less.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses - Value Line Larger Companies Focused Fund, Inc.
Investor Class
Institutional Class
Management Fees 0.75% 0.75%
Distribution and Service (12b-1) Fees 0.25% none
Other Expenses 0.23% 16.54%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses 1.23% 17.29%
Less: Fee Waivers and Expense Reimbursement [1] (0.08%) (16.39%)
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses after Fee Waivers and Expense Reimbursement 1.15% 0.90%
[1] EULAV Asset Management (the "Adviser") has contractually agreed to waive certain Fund-wide fees and further assume certain Fund-wide expenses to the extent necessary to limit such expenses (excluding brokerage commissions, interest, taxes, and certain non-routine Fund-wide expenses) to 0.90% of the average daily net assets of each class during the period August 1, 2017 to June 30, 2019. In addition, the Adviser and EULAV Securities LLC (the "Distributor") have contractually agreed to waive certain class-specific fees and assume certain class-specific expenses so that the Institutional Class bears its class-specific fees and expenses at the same percentage of its average daily net assets as the Investor Class's class-specific fees and expenses (excluding 12b-1 fees and certain non-routine class-specific expenses) during the period March 17, 2016 through June 30, 2019. The information in the table has been restated to reflect the applicable expense limitation for a class ("Expense Limitation"), each of which can be terminated or modified before June 30, 2019 only with the agreement of the Fund's board. The Adviser and the Distributor may subsequently recover from a class any fees waived and expenses assumed within three years after the fiscal year end in which the waiver or assumption occurred for such class, to the extent its expense ratio is less than the applicable Expense Limitation.
Example
This example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds. The example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated whether or not you redeem all of your shares at the end of those periods. The example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year, that the Fund’s operating expenses remain the same and that the fee waivers and expense reimbursements are in place through June 30, 2019 only. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
Expense Example - Value Line Larger Companies Focused Fund, Inc. - USD ($)
1 year
3 years
5 years
10 years
Investor Class 117 374 660 1,474
Institutional Class 92 1,946 4,841 9,484
Portfolio turnover
The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the example, affect the Fund’s performance. During the most recent fiscal year the Fund’s portfolio turnover rate for the Investor Class and the Institutional Class was 47% of the average value of the portfolio.
Principal investment strategies of the Fund

To achieve the Fund's investment objective, EULAV Asset Management (the "Adviser") invests substantially all of the Fund's assets in common stock. Under normal circumstances, the Adviser expects that the Fund's portfolio will generally consist of positions in 25 to 50 companies. The Adviser considers companies with market capitalization of greater than $10 billion to be larger companies. The Fund is actively managed by the Adviser, which seeks to purchase growth companies that have fundamentally strong market positions in growing industries that may enable those companies to increase future sales and earnings at an above average pace in the coming years. During the investment selection process, the Adviser performs fundamental and quantitative analysis on each company and utilizes the rankings of companies by the Value Line Timeliness™ Ranking System (the "Ranking System") to assist in selecting securities for purchase. The Ranking System is a proprietary quantitative system that compares an estimate of the probable market performance of each stock within a universe during the next six to twelve months to that of all stocks within that universe and ranks stocks on a scale of 1 (highest) to 5 (lowest). The universe consists of stocks of approximately 1,700 companies under review by the Ranking System accounting for approximately 90% of the market capitalization of all stocks traded on the U.S. securities exchanges, including stocks of foreign companies. The Adviser may sell securities for a variety of reasons including when a company's business fundamentals deteriorate or a company's valuation has become less attractive in relationship to the company's future growth prospects. Other reasons include to secure gains, limit losses or redeploy assets into more promising investment opportunities.

The Adviser has discretion in managing the Fund, including whether and which ranked stocks to include within the Fund's portfolio, whether and when to buy or sell stocks based upon changes in their rankings, and the frequency and timing of rebalancing the Fund's portfolio. The Adviser will determine the percentage of the Fund's assets invested in each stock based on the stock's relative attractiveness taking into account the potential risk and reward of each investment.

Principal risks of investing in the Fund

Investing in any mutual fund involves risk, including the risk that you may receive little or no return on your investment, and that you may lose part or all of your investment. Therefore, before you invest in the Fund you should carefully evaluate the risks.

■    Market Risk. The chief risk that you assume when investing in the Fund is market risk, which is the possibility that the securities in a certain market will decline in value because of factors such as economic conditions. Market risk may affect a single issuer, an industry, a sector of the economy, or the market as a whole.

■    Equity Securities Risk. Equity securities represent ownership in a corporation and their prices fluctuate for a number of reasons including issuer-specific events, market perceptions and general movements in the equity markets. The resulting fluctuation in the price of equity securities may take the form of a drastic movement or a sustained trend. If an issuer is liquidated or declares bankruptcy, the claims of owners of bonds will take precedence over the claims of owners of common stocks. Historically, the prices of equity securities have fluctuated more than bond prices.

■    Ranking System Risk. The Adviser's use of the results of the Ranking Systems in managing the Fund involves the risk that the Ranking Systems may not have the predictive qualities anticipated by the Adviser or that over certain periods of time the price of securities not covered by the Ranking Systems, or lower ranked securities, may appreciate to a greater extent than those securities in the Fund's portfolio.

■    Active Management Risk. Because the Fund is actively managed, its investment return depends on the ability of the Adviser to manage its portfolio successfully. There can be no guarantee that the Adviser's investment strategies will produce the desired results.

■    Foreign Investments Risk. Investing in foreign securities poses additional risks. The performance of foreign securities can be adversely affected by the different political, regulatory and economic environments in countries where the Fund invests, and fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates may also adversely affect the value of foreign securities. These risks tend to be more volatile in emerging markets (as compared to the U.S. market or developed foreign markets).

■    Cyber Security Risk. As the use of technology becomes more prevalent in the course of business, the Fund becomes more susceptible to operational, financial and information security risks resulting from cyber-attacks and/or technological malfunctions. Successful cyber-attacks and/or technological malfunctions affecting the Fund or its service providers can result in, among other things, financial losses to the Fund and its shareholders, the inability to process transactions with shareholders or other parties and the release of private shareholder information or confidential Fund information. While measures have been developed which are designed to reduce the risks associated with cyber security, there are inherent limitations in such measures and there is no guarantee those measures will be effective, particularly since the Fund does not directly control the cyber security measures of its service providers, financial intermediaries or companies in which it invests or with which it does business.

■    Liquidity Risk. In October 2016, the Securites and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") adopted Rule 22e-4 under the Investment Company Act of 1940 (the "1940 Act"), which mandates certain liquidity risk management practices for open-end funds, including the Fund, by 2018. The precise impact the rule will have on the Fund and on the open-end fund industry has not yet been determined, but any related changes may negatively affect the Fund's expenses, yield and return potential.

An investment in the Fund is not a complete investment program and you should consider it just one part of your total investment program. An investment in the Fund is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other governmental agency. For a more complete discussion of risk, please turn to page 35.

Fund performance
This bar chart and table can help you evaluate the potential risks of investing in the Fund. The bar chart below shows how returns for the Fund’s Investor Class shares have varied over the past ten calendar years. The table below compares the performance of the Investor Class and Institutional Class shares to the performance of the S&P 500® Index, which is a broad based market index. The Fund’s past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how it will perform in the future. Updated performance information is available at: www.vlfunds.com.
Total Returns of Investor Class (before taxes) as of 12/31 each year (%)
Bar Chart
Best Quarter:        Q1 2012         +13.79
Worst Quarter:     Q4 2008         –21.54 
 
After-tax returns in the table below are shown for Investor Class shares only and calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. After-tax returns for Institutional Class shares will vary from those of Investor Class shares shown in the table below. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor’s tax situation and may differ from those shown, and after-tax returns shown are not relevant to investors who hold their Fund shares through tax-deferred arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts (“IRAs”).
Average Annual Total Returns for Periods Ended December 31, 2016
Average Annual Total Returns - Value Line Larger Companies Focused Fund, Inc.
Label
1 year
5 years
10 years
Investor Class Return before taxes 0.24% 13.08% 5.87%
Investor Class | Return after taxes on distributions Return after taxes on distributions (2.72%) 11.41% 4.67%
Investor Class | Return after taxes on distributions and sale of Fund shares Return after taxes on distributions and sale of Fund shares 2.62% 10.45% 4.55%
S&P 500® Index (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes) S&P 500® Index (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes) 11.96% 14.66% 6.95%