investor’s notebook
STEPHEN CRANSTON: 25’s a charm for fund
There is a growing demand for highly concentrated global funds. But the Ashburton Global Leaders Equity Fund still stands out with a maximum of 25 shares. This means quite limited diversification: it has just one bank, JPMorgan, and just one life insurer, Prudential. It came out of a house that was strong in multi-asset funds: I am not sure that being fully invested at all times is in the Ashburton International DNA. It started as a private client fund manager in Jersey, Channel Islands. Fund manager Veronika Pechlaner spoke to me during her visit to SA this week. She says the fund is in the quality camp but doesn’t just invest in defensive sectors. It has quite a large overweight in energy — Royal Dutch Shell is its largest holding at a weighting of 6.5%. Pechlaner says the integrated energy players could soon find an inflection point at which they become substantially more cash generative. Three of its top five shares are in IT — Microsoft, Visa and Alphabet (Google) — but Pechlan...
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