The fund pursues an absolute return strategy that seeks to provide capital appreciation consistent with the risk-return characteristics of a diversified portfolio of hedge funds. The secondary goal of the fund is to achieve these returns with less volatility than major equity indices.

The tables below illustrate the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below. You may qualify for sales charge discounts in Class A Shares if you and your family invest, or agree to invest in the future, at least $50,000 in Virtus Funds. More information on these and other discounts is available: (i) from your financial professional or other financial intermediary; (ii) under “Sales Charges” on page 18 of the fund’s prospectus; and (iii) with respect to purchase of shares through specific intermediaries, in Appendix A to the fund’s prospectus, entitled “Intermediary Sales Charge Discounts and Waivers.”

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 was 514% of the average value of its portfolio.

The fund seeks to achieve its objective by investing in alternative or nontraditional asset categories or investment strategies, including strategies commonly employed by hedge funds, by typically investing in one or more of the following: (i) absolute return strategies that seek to generate returns regardless of the direction of traditional equity and fixed income markets, (ii) long-short equity strategies that combine long and short equity exposures, and (iii) investments in real assets, which are securities whose underlying value is tied to a tangible asset or are linked or correlated to the rate of inflation, such as real estate and infrastructure. Under normal market conditions, the fund’s subadviser, AlphaSimplex Group, LLC (“AlphaSimplex”), typically allocates the fund’s assets among affiliated and unaffiliated underlying funds, including exchange-traded funds (ETFs), that utilize these asset categories or investment strategies in an effort to provide differentiated sources of return while maintaining long-term return potential. Such strategies provide long and short exposure to global equities of any market capitalization, bonds of any credit quality or maturity, currencies, commodities, and other significant global markets. For this purpose, AlphaSimplex considers “global” to mean that the fund is exposed to the risks and return characteristics of investing in companies that operate worldwide and/or equities listed in a combination of U.S. and non-U.S. markets. Under normal circumstances, the fund expects to have significant exposure to non-US markets. The market segments and strategies represented in underlying funds that utilize these investment approaches may have lower or differentiated correlations to traditional equity and fixed income benchmarks and may have performance and volatility characteristics that are affected by factors that differ from those that determine the general direction of traditional equity and fixed income markets. These investments are intended to provide the fund with risk and return characteristics similar to those of a diversified portfolio of hedge funds.

The instruments in which underlying funds utilizing absolute return strategies are invested generally include equities, bonds, and derivative investments such as total return swaps, futures, and forward contracts. The fund may also directly make use of derivative instruments, in particular futures and forward contracts, in order to gain exposure to markets that AlphaSimplex believes will help the fund to achieve its investment objective. The fund may also hold other instruments such as cash, Treasury Bills, money market mutual funds, certificates of deposit, and similar instruments for cash management purposes.

The fund seeks to generate absolute positive returns over time rather than track the performance of any particular index of hedge fund returns. In selecting investments for the fund, AlphaSimplex uses quantitative models that are designed to identify investments that represent favorable return opportunities and to quantify the risk of the portfolio and its constituents. AlphaSimplex considers the expected return, volatility and diversification characteristics of the underlying investments in seeking to construct a portfolio with less volatility than major equity indices over time.

AlphaSimplex will have flexibility to allocate the fund’s exposure among various strategies through investments in underlying funds and other instruments; in addition to underlying funds, the fund may invest directly in securities, currencies, futures and forwards, in order to gain exposure to markets that AlphaSimplex believes will help the fund to achieve its investment objective. The amount of the fund’s assets that may be allocated to various strategies and among investments is expected to vary over time. When buying and selling investments for the fund, AlphaSimplex also may consider other factors, such as: (i) the fund’s obligations under its various derivative positions; (ii) portfolio rebalancing; (iii) redemption requests; (iv) yield management; (v) credit management; and (vi) volatility management. The fund will not invest directly in hedge funds. The fund may invest in non-U.S. securities and instruments and securities and instruments traded outside the United States, and may engage in non-U.S. currency transactions in connection with those investments.

Under normal market conditions, it is expected that no more than 25% of the fund’s total assets will be dedicated to initial and variation margin payments relating to the fund’s derivative transactions. The gross notional value of the fund’s derivative investments may generally exceed 25% of the fund’s assets, and may significantly exceed the total value of the fund’s assets. AlphaSimplex may invest a portion of the fund’s assets, which may vary over time, in short-term, high-quality securities. Such investments will be used primarily to finance the fund’s investments in derivatives and, secondarily, to provide the fund with incremental income and liquidity, and may include: (i) short-term obligations issued or guaranteed by the United States government, its agencies or instrumentalities; (ii) securities issued by foreign governments, their political subdivisions or agencies or instrumentalities; (iii) certificates of deposit, time deposits and bankers’ acceptances issued by domestic banks, foreign branches of domestic banks, foreign subsidiaries of domestic banks, and domestic and foreign branches of foreign banks; (iv) variable amount master demand notes; (v) participation interests in loans extended by banks to companies; (vi) commercial paper or similar debt obligations; and (vii) repurchase agreements. AlphaSimplex will select such investments based on various factors, including the security’s maturity and credit rating.

The fund may engage in active and frequent trading of securities and other instruments, including derivatives. Active and frequent trading of derivatives, like active and frequent trading of securities, will result in transaction costs which reduce fund returns.

The percentage limitations set forth herein are not investment restrictions, and the fund may exceed these limits from time to time.

Virtus AlphaSimplex Global Alternatives Fund, a series of Virtus Alternative Solutions Trust, is the successor of the AlphaSimplex Global Alternatives Fund, formerly a series of Natixis Funds Trust II (the “Predecessor Fund”), resulting from a reorganization of the Predecessor Fund with and into the fund on May 19, 2023.

The bar chart and table below provide some indication of the potential risks of investing in the fund. The fund’s past performance, before and after taxes, is not necessarily an indication of how the fund will perform in the future. The fund has adopted the past performance of the Predecessor Fund as its own. Therefore, the performance tables below include the performance of the shares of the Predecessor Fund prior to the fund’s commencement date. The Predecessor Fund and the fund have identical investment objectives and substantially identical investment strategies.

The bar chart shows changes in the fund’s performance from year to year over a 10-year period. The table shows how the fund’s average annual returns compare to those of a broad-based securities market index, the ICE BofA US 3-Month Treasury Bill Index and the Barclay Fund of Funds Index. Updated performance information is available at virtus.com or by calling 800-243-1574.

The Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index (formerly known as the FT Wilshire 5000 Index) is a broad-based free-float market capitalization-weighted index that aims to capture 100% of the U.S. investable market capitalization. The index is calculated on a total return basis with dividends reinvested. The index is unmanaged and not available for direct investment.

Effective November 10, 2026, the style-specific benchmark to which performance of the fund is compared has changed from the Barclay Fund of Funds Index to the ICE BofA US 3-Month Treasury Bill Index. This change is being made because the new benchmark is commonly used within the fund’s peer group and the subadviser believes it is an appropriate benchmark for an absolute return strategy. The ICE BofA US 3-Month Treasury Bill Index measures the performance of a single outstanding U.S. Treasury bill with approximately three months to maturity. It assumes the bill is purchased at the beginning of the month, held for one full month, and then rolled over into a newly selected 3-month issue. The index is calculated on a total return basis, is unmanaged, and is not available for direct investment.

After-tax returns are 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 are shown only for Class I Shares; after-tax returns for other classes will vary. Actual after-tax returns depend on the investor’s tax situation and may differ from those shown. After-tax returns are not relevant to investors who hold fund shares in tax-deferred accounts or to shares held by non-taxable entities.

> Affiliated Fund and ETF Risk: Because the fund’s subadviser or its affiliate(s) may receive fees from affiliated funds and/or exchange-traded funds (ETFs), some of which pay the subadviser or its affiliate(s) more than others, the fund’s subadviser has a conflict of interest in choosing between affiliated and unaffiliated mutual funds/ETFs when selecting and substituting investments for the fund.

> Derivatives – Futures and Forward Contracts Risk: The use of futures and forwards involves the risk that changes in the value of the contract may not correlate as expected with the underlying security, currency, commodity, index, interest rate or other reference measure. Because these instruments may involve economic leverage, a relatively small movement in the underlying reference measure may result in a disproportionately large gain or loss to the fund.

> Short Sales Risk: Generally, to the extent the price of a security sold short increases between the time of the short sale and the time the fund covers its short position, the fund will incur a loss. The amount of a potential loss on an uncovered short sale transaction is theoretically unlimited.

> Commodity and Commodity-linked Instruments Risk: Commodities and commodity-linked instruments will subject the fund’s portfolio to greater volatility than investments in traditional securities, and will depend on factors such as drought, floods, weather, livestock disease, embargoes, tariffs and other regulatory developments or supply and demand disruptions. Commodity-linked instruments may experience returns different from the commodity they attempt to track and may also be exposed to counterparty risk.

> Foreign Currency Transactions Risk: The fund’s transactions with respect to foreign currency may not be successful or have the effect of limiting gains from favorable market movements.

> Interest Rate Risk: The values of debt instruments may rise or fall in response to changes in interest rates, and this risk may be enhanced for securities with longer maturities.

> Portfolio Turnover Risk: The fund’s principal investment strategies may result in a high portfolio turnover rate. Effects of frequent trading of securities and other instruments, including derivatives, may include high transaction costs, which may lower the fund’s return, and realization of greater short-term capital gains, distributions of which are taxable as ordinary income to taxable shareholders. Trading costs and tax effects associated with frequent trading may adversely affect the fund’s performance. See the “Portfolio Turnover” section above for more information about the impact that portfolio turnover can have on your investment.

> Counterparty Risk: There is risk that a party upon whom the fund relies to complete a transaction will default.

> Hedge Fund Correlation Risk: Although the fund does not seek to track any particular index, the fund seeks to analyze the factors that drive hedge fund returns, as determined by reference to one or more indices. These indices may not provide an accurate representation of hedge fund returns generally, and the subadviser’s strategy may not successfully identify or be able to replicate factors that drive returns. There is a risk that hedge fund return data provided by third party hedge fund index providers may be inaccurate or may not accurately reflect hedge fund returns due to survivorship bias, self-reporting bias or other biases.

> Long/Short Strategy Investing Risk: Long/short investing strategies bear the risks associated with both equity investing and short sales. In addition, a long/short strategy may fail to limit losses during periods of market decline, and the fund may underperform a long-only equity strategy when equity markets rise significantly.

> Liquidity Risk: Certain instruments may be difficult or impossible to sell at a time and price beneficial to the fund.

> Allocation Risk: If the fund’s exposure to equities and fixed income securities, or to other asset classes, deviates from the intended allocation, or if the fund’s allocation is not optimal for market conditions at a given time, the fund’s performance may suffer.

> Redemption Risk: One or more large shareholders or groups of shareholders may redeem their holdings in the fund, resulting in an adverse impact on remaining shareholders in the fund by causing the fund to take actions it would not otherwise have taken. The effects of taxable gains resulting from large redemptions of fund shares would particularly impact non-redeeming shareholders who do not hold their fund shares in a tax-advantaged or tax-exempt vehicle. Such large shareholder redemptions, which may occur rapidly or unexpectedly, may cause a fund to sell portfolio securities at times when it would not otherwise do so, which may negatively impact the fund’s net asset value and liquidity. In addition, a large redemption could result in the fund’s current expenses being allocated over a smaller asset base, leading to an increase in the fund’s expense ratio.

> Valuation Risk: This is the risk that the fund has valued certain securities or positions at a higher price than the price at which they can be sold. This risk may be especially pronounced for investments, such as derivatives, that may be illiquid or may become illiquid.