"Education"

At Claremont Global, a 10 to 15 stock concentrated quality growth manager that invests globally, we look at the portfolio in terms of the 4Ps: People, Process, Portfolio construction, and Performance. This approach has delivered over 8% per annum in alpha over the last three years.

If I look at the people in the team, we've got collectively, over 70 years’ experience in global investing.

I have over 27 years in global investing. I pretty much always looked at stocks as looking at a portfolio of 15 stocks, for quality, focused growth investing.

As long-term investors, we understandably care about the quality of our investments now. But it is the future direction of these companies where we can realise the most substantial growth prospects.

Our approach to investing hinges on four main pillars: business quality, management quality, a strong balance sheet and a fair valuation.

Each of these components provide insights into the future trajectory of a company, removing the noise of headline claims.

Within the last 12 months the market narrative has switched from fears of deflation to concerns of inflation.

Agilent Technologies is a life sciences company that provide a range of analytical instruments involved primarily in quality control and assurance of the lab. Its expertise largely sits in the highly specialised field of liquid/gas chromatography and mass spectrometry instruments. This underpins the company's comprehensive and growing services, consumables, and informatics piece.

With a mandate of owning 10-15 stocks, I am often asked: “How do I sleep at night given the concentration risk?” This has been a familiar refrain for most of the 25 years I have been managing client capital and where I have always run concentrated portfolios with 10-25 stocks. The thinking suggests that with a concentrated portfolio, you are running excess risk and one would be better served having a more “diversified” portfolio.

My answer is always the same – it all depends on how you define risk.