Fund Aim
The Company's investment policy is to invest in shares issued by small and mid sized companies with a market capitalisation (at the time of investment) of between £500 million to £15 billion (although the Company expects that the average market capitalisation of the companies in which it invests to be approximately £7 billion) on a long-term, global basis. The Company’s approach is to be a long-term investor in its chosen stocks. It will not adopt short-term trading strategies. Accordingly, it will pursue its investment policy by investing in approximately 25 to 40 companies as follows:
(a) the Company can invest up to 10 per cent. in value of its Gross Assets (as at the time of investment) in shares issued by any single body;
(b) not more than 20 per cent. in value of the Gross Assets (as at the time of investment) can be in deposits held with a single body. In applying this limit all uninvested cash (except cash representing distributable income or credited to a distribution account that the Depositary holds) should be included;
(c) not more than 20 per cent. in value of the Gross Assets (as at the time of investment) can consist of shares issued by the same group. When applying the limit set out in (a) this provision would allow the Company to invest up to 10 per cent. in the shares of 2 companies which are members of the same group (as at the time of investment);
(d) the Company’s holdings in any combination of shares or deposits issued by a single body must not exceed 20 per cent. in value of its Gross Assets (as at the time of investment) overall;
(e) the Company must not acquire shares issued by a body corporate and carrying rights to vote at a general meeting of that body corporate if the Company has the power to influence significantly the conduct of business of that body corporate (or would be able to do so after the acquisition of the shares). The Company is to be taken to have power to influence significantly if it exercises or controls the exercise of 20 per cent. or more of the voting rights in that body corporate; and
(f) the Company must not acquire shares which do not carry a right to vote on any matter at a general meeting of the body corporate that issued them and represent more than 10 per cent. of these securities issued by that body corporate.
Portfolio Comment for October 2020 We have built a position in Fortinet Inc. The company produces cybersecurity software provided through multi-year subscription contracts and firewall hardware appliances. Fortinet is one of four large players in the security software market and has been taking market share, growing at more than 20% over the last few years, while also improving its operating margin to around 20%. We sold our position in Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. This company is a direct competitor to Fortinet and has been growing at a low single digit percentage rate over the last couple of years and is therefore likely losing market shareThe top 5 contributors in the month were Paycom, IPG Photonics, Technology One, Abcam and Domino's Pizza Enterprises. The top 5 detractors were Fevertree Drinks, Temenos, Equifax, Domino's Pizza Group and Qualys.
The OCF (Ongoing Charges Figure) is the total expenses paid by the fund (excluding bank overdraft interest), annualised, against its average net asset value. The OCF will fluctuate as the average net assets and costs change. The OCF is updated following the publication of accounts for the periods ending 30th June and 31st December. NB Where a position is being built for the fund the company name is not disclosed in factsheet data.