This was our first introduction to the strategy. It has been running for nearly five years and the manager has been at the helm for about 12 months. One immediate question we would have is around why there has been a change of management and whether that has impacted the strategy.
In terms of the market COVID 19 has been beneficial for technology and the fund. The fund looks to invest in areas like the internet, cloud, software and semiconductors. The fund has always looked to invest in those companies at the early stages of the business cycle. The aim is to hold onto the stocks and compound returns over the long term. They are not looking to invest in ‘blue sky ideas’ but those with strong balance sheets, and therefore by their own nature are quality companies.
The companies that they hold will not be immune to heightened volatility but investing in certain areas means that these companies should recover quicker and even gain market share. In this current environment Zoom has seen meetings go from 10 million in December to 300 million in April. News viewership on You Tube has gone up 75% year on year. Amazon has hired an additional 100,000 people and now delivers more than 10 billion items worldwide a year….read more