FP Carmignac European Leaders: A strong start of the year

Since the beginning of the year (as of 28/03/2024), FP Carmignac European Leaders has outperformed its benchmark with a performance of 10.3% (A GBP Acc) vs +6.8% for the MSCI Europe Ex UK Net Total Return¹.

This excess return can be attributed primarily to strong stock selection in the Information Technology and Healthcare sectors which have been driving the gains. It is important to note that the fund's performance is not solely reliant on the hype surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) and anti-obesity treatments. Indeed, after a challenging year in 2023 for the health care sector (when we exclude the GLP-1 theme), this year’s reversal has supported our broad and diversified exposure to the sector (Alcon and Lonza are among the top contributors).

In addition, our lack of exposure to Energy stocks was beneficial to our performance YTD.

On the detractor side, our limited exposure to communication services and underweight Industrials and Consumer Discretionary impacted performance, despite the strong performance of our new positions.

We have a dynamic approach to weights in our portfolio. For example, Amadeus and Kingspan which were strong performers last year were reduced and/or exited this year. This has been helpful in terms of contribution to performance. On the other hand, we bought back into Adyen this year. Despite being a detractor towards the end of 2023, Adyen has been a contributor to this year’s performance.

Over the past two months, the Fund Manager, Mark Denham took advantage of the market momentum to lock in profits in some of his healthcare names and reduced his position in Zealand Pharma, a player in the obesity drug market, Merus and Alcon post their results as well as Nordnet in financials. He also reduced weight in Dassault Systemes and Edenred, as well as selling out of positions in Puma, and Kingspan following disappointing results.

During January Hermes was added and we bought back into Adyen. Hermes has a long-term track record of protecting brand equity and limiting supply of its products to maintain exclusivity. This has been a strong driver of growth for the consumer stock which demonstrated a strong 2023 revenue print and promising forward looking numbers thanks to their pricing power.

Regarding Adyen, we see the company as a global leader and industry standard setter in the global payments processor space. The company demonstrates traits of high-quality compounding stock with strong long-term growth potential in a very attractive industry. Mark also added back to ASML and SAP on the IT side to benefit from the growth in AI as well as ArgenX and Sartorius in healthcare after a disappointing 2023 for these companies.

As we approach the end of Q1 2024, Mark remains cautious due to the potential impact of weaker corporate and economic data. The view is that as economic growth slows down, inflation will also decrease, leading to a gradual decline in interest rates.

We see a strong opportunity for quality growth stocks in the current environment driven by eased headwinds from inflation and high interest rates, as well as attractive valuations relative to their 2020 peak. When looking at the two themes that have strongly contributed to our performance, we believe that AI continues to display a significant potential for forward earnings growth. Playing this theme through ASML as a disruptor in the semiconductor space would be beneficial as the company benefits from key structural trends in growth of leading-edge, geographical redistribution of manufacturing capacity and AI will further fuel a semiconductor refresh cycle.

Similarly, GLP-1 players in the healthcare space should continue to fare well as near term profit forecasts do not yet reflect likely ongoing strength in diabetes and resumption supply in obesity treatment. With our focus on ESG, we also see names like Schneider Electric in the energy efficiency space benefit from structural growth going forward as electrification for sustainability and digitization for efficiency are secular trends.

The fund demonstrates a strong track record since its launch in May 2019². To the 28th March 2024 the fund’s cumulative performance is 83.1% vs 54.6% for its benchmark, the MSCI Europe Ex UK Net Total Return. This places the fund in the first decile in terms of performance versus the IA sector Europe excluding UK.