Liontrust Assessment of Value Report - Flipbook - Page 78
Liontrust Global Smaller Companies Fund
The Fund is managed by Robin Geffen and aims to generate capital
growth over the long term (5 years or more). The Fund invests at
least 80% of the portfolio in shares of small sized companies across
the world. These are companies which, at the time of purchase,
have a market capitalisation of under £10 billion.
Performance
Overall value
assessment
We have evaluated the Fund
against all seven criteria in
our assessment of the value
it provides to investors. We
have concluded that the
Fund has performed in line
with expectations, delivering
overall value to investors.
Go back to the Summary
of the Assessment of
Value table
We have assessed the investment performance of the Fund against both its
stated investment objective, as well as against the benchmarks that are set out
in its prospectus. We considered whether the Fund has performed how we and
investors would expect it to, given the market conditions it has been operating
under, and its investment philosophy, strategy and process.
The Liontrust Global Smaller Companies Fund returned 168.9% over five years
to 31 August 2021, outperforming the MSCI World SMID Index and IA Global
(both comparator benchmarks) respective returns of 78.0% and 84.9%.*
The Fund looks for companies that are capable of long-term growth using
the five key drivers of Science, Intellectual Property, New Technology, Social
Change and Entrepreneurial Vision. As a result, the Fund focuses on capital light
businesses, and avoids sectors and sub-sectors that are capital intensive where
larger and existing companies have a huge advantage.
Given the sheer number of exciting, high-growth and fundamentally
underappreciated stocks within the US and the innovative nature of these
companies, the manager is currently finding the most opportunities there, with
this regional allocation being a key driver of outperformance over the period.
In the US, the manager’s preference for information technology stocks and
specifically those in the software and services sub-sector has been particularly
beneficial. Due to the ‘bottom-up’ nature of the investment process, the Fund’s
performance is best viewed in terms of stock selection, with holdings Twilio,
RingCentral and Rapid7 among the top contributors over the period.
The Fund looks to gradually exit holdings when they exceed the $10 billion
market cap threshold. As a result, most of the Fund’s successful stock picks will
naturally outgrow the small-cap space (with many of these stocks ‘graduating’ to
other funds in the Global Equity range which have higher market cap boundaries).
This document is intended to be for information purposes only. It is not
marketing material.
*Source: Financial Express, as at 31.08.21, total return, net of fees, income reinvested.
78 - Liontrust Assessment of Value Report