Global Technology Equity Fund

Investment involves risk. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of current or future results and should not be the sole factor of consideration when selecting a product or strategy.

Overview

Strategy

Fund Summary

Actively managed and invests mainly in a diversified portfolio of shares of technology development or utilisation companies, with a focus on leading global technology companies. The companies may be anywhere in the world, including emerging markets.

No data available

Performance (Class A)

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. Performance returns are calculated on a NAV-NAV basis, net of fees, with distributions reinvested. Returns for the current year performance is cumulative. Benchmark returns are shown with reinvestment of dividends after the deduction of withholding taxes. The Excess Returns are shown as Fund % minus the Benchmark %. Performance returns for share classes less than 1 year old (and associated benchmarks) are cumulative rather than annualised.

Effective 1 July 2024, the comparator benchmark for the fund changed to MSCI AC World Information Technology 10/40 Net Index. Prior to this change, the comparator benchmark was MSCI AC World Information Technology Index Net. Historical benchmark representations have not been restated.

Current Year Performance

Please Note

There is currently limited Current Year Performance data for this fund. Please contact us for more information.

Annualised Performance

Please Note

There is currently limited Annualised Performance data for this fund. Please contact us for more information.

30-Nov-2023 - Dom Rizzo, Portfolio Manager,

Our positions in consumer internet companies continue to benefit from improving fundamentals in terms of e-commerce demand trends, operational efficiency, and the ability to show improvement in earnings and free cash flow. Our largest holding in the subsector is a leading e-commerce platform and reflects our belief that the company’s e-commerce division and margins will improve over the next year. We also maintain a position in a leading US online food delivery platform. We continue to like the positioning of the company within its industry as well as its strong management team.

Team

No data available

Fees

No data available

Purchases

Please Note

There is currently limited Purchases & Sales data for this fund. Please contact us for more information.

Sales

Please Note

There is currently limited Purchases & Sales data for this fund. Please contact us for more information.

30-Jun-2022 - Alan Tu, Portfolio Manager,

We initiated a position in Salesforce, a leading provider of customer relationship management software. Shares dropped mid-quarter on concerns that protracted economic weakness could undermine enterprise technology spending, and we believe this created an attractive valuation for a company that is in a privileged market position and has a long growth runway driven by businesses prioritizing how they attract and serve customers. We also believe in management's efforts to make the business more profitable.
We downsized our position in Okta, a company providing software services for identity management solutions. Okta was negatively impacted by a security incident earlier in the year. However, we believe an increasingly mobile workforce, along with growing demand from enterprises for more robust network security, represents strong secular tailwinds for the firm.
We reduced our position in Hubspot, a provider of marketing and customer relationship management software for small businesses. Although e-commerce has decelerated and consumer spending has weakened, we believe HubSpot should continue to benefit from its strong management team, the secular shift from offline-to-online interactions, and the prospects for increased durable growth as it moves upmarket.
We sold shares in Taiwan Semiconductors, the world's largest dedicated foundry of semiconductor manufacturer capacity. We believe the company's sustained tech leadership in the semiconductor space and broadening demand from smartphones to personal computing, data centers, and automotive components can help it overcome cyclical demands within the industry. While we remain constructive on the position, we trimmed our holdings to capture some long-term profits.
MercadoLibre is the premier e-commerce marketplace in Latin America. We trimmed our position given signs of slowing online growth. While we continue to appreciate the company's vibrant marketplace ecosystem and proven experience in building two-sided networks, we have increased cautiousness on the company's ability to overdeliver on commerce volume growth expectations as we cycle through two years of elevated pandemic-related comparables in the quarters ahead.
We sold shares in Etsy to reduce our position size and on concerns about macroeconomic headwinds and slowing e-commerce demand. Etsy is an online marketplace for unique, creative, and often homemade goods that employs a flywheel strategy to drive organic revenue growth. We value the company for its strong market position, global growth opportunity, and very large total addressable market.
We added to Roblox on recent weakness. We are attracted to the powerful social network effects Roblox utilizes in drawing in new active users and creators. This sets up a positive feedback loop and helps the platform widen its moat, expand its addressable market, and potentially deliver durable earnings.
We sold shares of Tesla. Performance lagged as the company dealt with mixed messaging on staffing levels and production issues. We appreciate Tesla's ability to leverage its advantages in manufacturing, software, and brand, and we expect it to eventually be able to move down the cost curve and unlock new parts of the market while increasing unit margins. However, we sold shares during the period to manage risk/reward.
We eliminated our position in the electric vehicle manufacturer and developer Rivian Automotive. While the company reduced cash burn and has a projected liquidity runway to 2025 to provide runway for its production ramp-up, we sold shares on the belief that it remains a long road to scale. We feel the company will have to walk an execution tightrope to profitably produce its models, especially its SUV and pickup truck, and continue to add production volume while coming down the cost curve.

Contributors

Please Note

There is currently limited data for this fund. Please contact us for more information.

Detractors

Please Note

There is currently limited data for this fund. Please contact us for more information.

30-Jun-2022 - Alan Tu, Portfolio Manager,

Shopify offers online merchants a single, easy-to-use platform for setting up and managing e-commerce businesses. The company faced macroeconomic headwinds as its warning of decelerating e-commerce sales growth alarmed investors. We think year-over-year comparisons in e-commerce should improve in the second half of 2022. Additionally, investors have been sanguine on the expansion of its Shopify Fulfillment Network, an investment we think is constructive.
Atlassian, a collaboration and workflow tool provider, detracted from relative returns during the period. The uncertain pace of its users migrating to the cloud, a long-term driver of increased revenue for Atlassian, is providing near-term friction as the company cannot control when the clients choose to change over. We believe Atlassian can successfully navigate this transition, and we remain constructive on the long-term prospects of a company that directly targets users in marketing their products by employing a low-cost flywheel approach rather than a traditional top-down sales model.
Shares of DoorDash, a growing on-demand delivery platform, lost value as markets feared the firm may face a demand hangover as the coronavirus pandemic wanes. We believe DoorDash maintains a favorable behavioral backdrop with purchases becoming habitual in its customer base, which should allow for high retention even in the face of a tough economic setting. We also like the company's strategy that focuses on building last-mile logistics to expand its services across multiple market segments and penetrate a large and growing accessible market.
Shares of Sea declined after the company reported a drop in margins, mainly attributing losses to its increased discretionary spend on research and development. While we are still attracted to Sea's unique platform and ability to lead secular trends within fast-growing markets, we will monitor how the company evolves its growth strategy and game development.
Shares of Tesla, the leading developer of electric and automated vehicles, declined as founder Elon Musk's efforts to buy Twitter raised concerns about how he would fund that purchase, with his Tesla stock used as collateral. We appreciate Tesla's ability to leverage its advantages in manufacturing, software, and brand, and we expect the company will eventually move down the cost curve and unlock new parts of the market while increasing unit margins.
A lack of exposure to IT services detracted from relative performance as many of these stocks outperformed those in other areas of technology, despite their negative returns.
An underweight position in semiconductors contributed to relative results as the sector underperformed the broader index.

Disclosure on Vendor Indices can be found here.

Current Year Performance

Annualised Performance

Team

Fees

Risks

Typical Investor

Calendar Year Performance

Cumulative Performance

Top 10 Holdings

Purchases

Sales

Contributors

Detractors

Region Diversification

Region Diversification