In focus
[ FUND ]
34 / 35
Hugh Grieves and Nick Ford say this fund doesn’t just latch
on to whatever theme happens to be driving markets
TRUSTNET
“And if you do get a model and
forecast it, you can’t value it and
you’re paying the full price.”
As a result, the managers will avoid
car makers, aviation and miners.
“It’s not necessarily a fund that
shoots the lights out in any particular
year, but it can do well consistently
year after year,” Grieves concluded.
FACT BOX
MANAGERS: Hugh Grieves & Nick Ford / LAUNCHED: 18/03/2013 / FUND SIZE: £639.8m
/ OCF: 0.9%
CROWN RATING
PERFORMANCE OF FUND VS SECTOR
AND INDEX SINCE LAUNCH
IA North America S&P 500 LF Miton US
(137.27%) (160.32%) Opportunities (154.26%)
175%
150%
125%
100%
75%
50%
25%
0%
-25%
He added: “We very much felt that
was not good enough and we wanted
a fund that could do well whatever
the weather and that could steadily
compound over time.”
Grieves and Ford take a multi-
cap approach, focusing on capital
preservation because “it’s no good
making lots of money for people one
year and taking it all back the next”.
To achieve this, the managers look
for companies exhibiting steady
growth, strong cash flows and high
barriers to entry.
“We have to invest in companies
with high levels of repeat business
and recurring revenues, that tend
to be asset-lite, have high margins,
loads of working capital and steady
tailwinds of growth behind them, so
they generate more cash in the future
than they do today,” said Ford.
Grieves added: “The Holy Grail is to
deliver S&P-and-above performance,
with lower risk.”
Q
uality growth companies
in the US have continued to
power ahead of the rest of
the market, leaving some investors
to wonder if they should take a late
punt on the top performers that have
dominated returns.
However, Hugh Grieves and
Nick Ford of the LF Miton US
Opportunities fund believe investors
who take a narrow focus on the US
will be left ruing their decision should
this style fall out of favour.
“When we launched the fund, we
were aware that in IA North America
there were funds that would latch on
to a particular factor – whether it was
tech, small cap or whatever – that was
all they did,” said Grieves.
“Those funds will do well for a
period and will sell a lot of units,
probably at the top [of the market],
and then will do badly because
whatever factor they’re latching on to
has a period of underperformance.”
LF Miton US
Opportunities
However, finding these stocks can
be a challenge.
“We never invest in 85 per cent
of the market because those
companies are too unpredictable, too
uncompetitive and too many things
can go wrong,” said Grieves. “By
and large the companies themselves
struggle to forecast their own future.
Source: FE Analytics
trustnet.com