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[ BAILLIE GIFFORD ]
8 / 9
James Budden says Monks Investment Trust’s diverse and measured
take on global growth makes it a suitable cornerstone of any
investor’s portfolio
Monks – growth from
different perspectives
C
harles Plowden, Malcolm
MacColl and Spencer Adair
have been managing Monks
Investment Trust since
April 2015. But this triumvirate have
been working together since 2005 on
Global Alpha, Baillie Gifford’s largest
institutional strategy with over £30
billion invested. Monks sets out to be
a core global growth investment and
could act as a cornerstone to private
investors’ portfolios.
The managers seek to create a
differentiated, actively managed global
equity portfolio containing a diversified
range of growth stocks. Recognising
that growth comes in many shapes
and sizes, they have identified four
sub-categories of growth that they
believe will generate sustainable
growth and hopefully lead to the trust’s
outperformance over the long term.
FE TRUSTNET
When analysing businesses, the
managers focus on their underlying
growth attributes and do not allow
themselves to be distracted by
the traditional habit of labelling
companies by sector or domicile. For
them, it is ridiculous to think that the
location of a company’s headquarters
matters in this globalised world,
or that all financial or technology
stocks share common business
characteristics.
Monks categorises its investments
into four growth categories: Growth
Monks sets out to be
a core global growth
investment and could act
as a cornerstone to private
investors’ portfolios
Stalwarts, Rapid Growth, Cyclical
Growth and Latent Growth. The team
has a clear view of the inefficiencies
they are exploiting within each
growth category and the reasons
why they expect investments to
outperform. The use of these four
designations also encourages
diversity across the portfolio and
provides a means of monitoring
the operational performance of the
investments.
1. Growth Stalwarts
These companies have durable
franchises. They are expected to
deliver robust profitability in most
macroeconomic environments. Within
this area, the managers are often drawn
to businesses where the competitive
advantages include dominant local
scale, customer loyalty and strong
brands. An example of one such
stock held in the portfolio would be
trustnet.com