Portfolio Holdings

What does it do?

Alphabet is the holding company which owns the world's leading internet search provider, Google. Google is the world's most visited website and the largest global advertising platform by advertising revenue. It also operates the third largest cloud computing business, Google Cloud Platform.

Why do we own it?

Alphabet benefits from wide moats built on its dominant position in online search, a deep intellectual property portfolio, and strong global brands. We believe Alphabet is well positioned for growth as advertising budgets continue to shift from television and other off-line budgets to digital channels, while rising AI-related demand drives further growth in Google Cloud.

What does it do?

Amazon is the dominant e-commerce platform in the Western Hemisphere. Alongside the e-commerce platform, the company offers marketing and logistics services to vendors and subscriptions to customers, which includes everything from free shipping to music and video. Amazon’s Amazon Web Services) business is the largest global cloud computing platform, helping clients with data storage and computing power.

Why do we own it?

Amazon sits at the intersection of several powerful secular tailwinds — the continued shift to e-commerce, the migration of advertising spend online, and rising adoption of public cloud and AI infrastructure. Its scale and network advantages across logistics, retail, and cloud create reinforcing moats that are difficult for competitors to replicate. With a long runway across each of these markets, Amazon is positioned well for durable long-term growth.

What does it do?

ASML is the leading manufacturer of lithography machines used to produce semiconductor chips. Described by some as the most complex machines ever built, these lithography machines can be as large as a bus, contain over 100,000 parts and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Why do we own it?

ASML has 100% market share in the cutting-edge lithography machines that are used to manufacture the most advanced semiconductor chips, such as those used in smartphones and laptops. Advances in areas such as AI and autonomous driving will require increasing amounts of these advanced semiconductor chips, which will drive ongoing demand for ASML’s lithography machines.

What does it do?

Boston Scientific is a leading manufacturer of innovative medical devices used to treat a range of medical conditions to over 30 million patients each year. Boston Scientific focuses on minimally invasive therapies, which generally improve patient outcomes versus traditional surgery and reduce the overall cost of treatment for health systems.

Why do we own it?

Boston Scientific is well positioned with market-leading positions in several fast-growing medical device markets. With a strong pipeline of new product launches and a track record of investment in innovation, we expect Boston Scientific to sustain its above-market growth through time.

What does it do?

Capital One is a leading US credit card issuer. Capital One has grown market share from 4% in 2010 to 14% today, and following the recent merger with Discover, Capital One is the third largest credit card issuer in the US. Since day one, Capital One has been an information and data focused company. It operates almost entirely as a digital bank with limited branches; and is the only bank fully operating in the cloud.

Why do we own it?

US credit cards are an attractive segment within banking, with high barriers to entry and strong returns. Capital One’s digital technology advantage drives strong credit card underwriting and cost advantages versus traditional banks. The merger with Discover will strengthen its moat, deliver meaningful earnings growth, and support higher capital returns to shareholders.

What does it do?

Danaher is a leading player in the Lifesciences and Diagnostics industries where it provides its customers with the cutting-edge tools to help them to diagnose disease; and discover and manufacture new drug therapies to treat those diseases.

Why do we own it?

An aging population and rising healthcare spend are driving sustained investment in the diagnosis and treatment of chronic disease. With a leading portfolio of tools and services spanning diagnostics, life sciences research, and biopharma manufacturing, Danaher is well positioned to capture this investment. Underpinned by its renowned culture of continuous improvement embedded in its Danaher Business System, we expect Danaher to keep gaining share as it becomes an increasingly indispensable partner to its customers.

What does it do?

Dexcom is a leading player in continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices for people with diabetes, which impacts hundreds of millions of people globally.

Why do we own it?

Dexcom benefits from high barriers to entry in CGM devices due to high upfront investment and specialist know-how. It takes years to innovate and develop a new sensor before receiving regulatory clearance. Compared to finger pricking, CGM devices achieve better health outcomes from continuous glucose readings vs. a static one-off, similar or better accuracy, and more convenience. Only ~6-7% of the diabetic population globally use a CGM device, so Dexcom is well positioned for many years of growth.

What does it do?

Edwards Lifesciences is the global market leader in the treatment of heart valve disease, which impacts millions of people worldwide and carries a poor prognosis if left untreated. Edward’s main products allow for the treatment of this disease without the need for risky open-heart surgery.

Why do we own it?

Edwards Lifesciences continues to lead the industry in innovation, investing in the development of new products which both improve medical outcomes for patients and help doctors treat a wider range of previously untreated patients using a lower risk approach. With a dominant market share and continued investment in research and development, Edwards Lifesciences has a long runway for growth.

What does it do?

Equifax is one of the three largest credit agencies globally, collecting data from multiple sources to form a database of individual consumers and small businesses, including credit history, employment history, payment history, and other identity information. This data and associated analytics are then sold to businesses such as financial institutions to make decisions such as whether, and on what terms, to approve auto loans or credit card applications; or whether to allow a consumer or a business to open a new utility or telephone account; or providing background checks for potential employers.

Why do we own it?

Following a multi-year and multi-billion-dollar investment in cloud capability, we believe Equifax is well set to boost innovation and drive higher sales from new products. Equifax should also benefit from falling interest rates. Current mortgage applications are currently well below historic levels. As rates fall, the level of applications is expected to increase, all of which require credit data from Equifax.

What does it do?

Floor and Décor is a leading specialty hard flooring retailer in the US. Its warehouse format stores, which are roughly the size of a Bunnings, only offer hard surface flooring. The company offers the industry’s broadest in-stock assortment at everyday low prices. Floor and Décor has almost 300 stores across 40 states.

Why do we own it?

The company has potential to dominate the niche hard surface flooring category, which historically grew mid-single digits year over year. There is significant runway for future store growth with the potential to almost double its footprint to around 500 stores. Given the company’s size and scale, Mom and Pop retailers, which have 50% market share, cannot compete on price or service with Floor and Décor.

What does it do?

Greggs is a vertically integrated food-on-the-go operator in the UK. The company operates more than 2,500 stores and is the leader in the UK take-away sandwich and savoury market.

Why do we own it?

Greggs has the potential to continue to gain share of the fragmented UK market given the strength of Gregg’s value proposition. We see plenty of opportunity for Greggs to continue rolling out stores, while also implementing strategic initiatives (e.g. evening trade, delivery, click and collect) to increase sales turnover at established stores.

What does it do?

HDFC Bank is the largest private sector bank in India; and one of the highest quality banks globally. With 100 million customers, it has grown market share from 7% to 14.4% since 2016, sustaining industry-leading returns. The bank is a disciplined underwriter; gross non-performing assets are consistently amongst the lowest in the industry.

Why do we own it?

Following the 2023 merger with its parent, HDFC Ltd, the bank has successfully navigated a period of balance sheet consolidation. We expect HDFC Bank to leverage its industry-leading scale and strong domestic brand to continue gaining share of the Indian banking market.

What does it do?

Hermès is a 189-year-old French family-owned luxury design brand that sells leather goods, clothes, silk scarves, homeware and jewellery. The company is known for its iconic Birkin and Kelly bags where resale values often exceed retail values given high demand.

Why do we own it?

High quality (controlled through a vertically integrated supply chain) and product exclusivity give Hermès a durable moat. The company is run by a long-term oriented management team and has a long growth runway, making Hermès an attractive investment.

What does it do?

Known as a contract research organisation (CRO), Icon provides specialised services in clinical trial management for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

Why do we own it?

The rising complexity and regulatory burden of clinical trial management is pushing pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies worldwide to outsource to specialist CROs like ICON. Its global footprint and breadth of clinical management capabilities place it among a small handful of players able to service the largest, most complex global trials. Growth is underpinned by the continued shift to outsourcing, a growing volume of drugs entering the pipeline, and increasingly demanding trial requirements from regulators such as the FDA.

What does it do?

Intuitive Surgical is the pioneer and leading manufacturer of soft-tissue surgical robotics, used to assist surgeons in performing minimally invasive surgical procedures. Since Intuitive first launched its ‘da Vinci’ robot over twenty years ago, there are now over 11,000 systems placed around the world, performing over two million procedures annually.

Why do we own it?

Robotic systems aid and enhance the surgeon’s capabilities, and both increase comfort and reduce fatigue as the surgeons can sit at a console versus standing over patients for hours a day. This enhanced capability of robotics creates better clinical outcomes than the equivalent open surgery. We expect that as robotic technology continues to evolve, penetration will further increase. Barriers to entry for robotic surgery are substantial, and we expect that Intuitive will maintain a high market share in the future even as competitors come to market.

What does it do?

Keyence is a leader in the development of industrial automation and inspection equipment globally. It develops advanced cameras, sensors, and microscopes that help manufacturers improve productivity and ensure quality control across end markets such as automotive and food production.

Why do we own it?

Keyence’s large direct salesforce, intellectual property portfolio, broad product range, and disciplined culture underpin its competitive moat. This positions the company well to benefit from increasing factory automation globally.

What does it do?

MasterCard is the second largest payment network in the world, operating in 210 countries and supporting more than 2 billion cards across its network.

Why do we own it?

MasterCard's growth outlook is underpinned by the secular shift to electronic payments and away from cash, particularly in emerging markets where MasterCard has significant presence. These structural growth drivers combined with increasing margins and high cash flow generation (allowing for substantial share buybacks) supports a strong growth outlook over the medium to long term.

What does it do?

MercadoLibre is the largest e-commerce player in Latin America, while also offering payments solutions for retailers and credit for consumers and businesses via its fast-growing fintech business.

Why do we own it?

It is taking market share off incumbents in e-commerce given its faster shipping and lower product prices, underpinned by the largest distribution centre network. It leverages its moat in the e-commerce business to acquire under-served customers efficiently in the fintech business. This strong competitive position, combined with a long growth runway (given ecommerce and banking penetration in Latin America lag other developed markets) makes MercadoLibre an attractive investment.

What does it do?

Previously known as Facebook and has rebranded to Meta Platforms Inc who is the parent organization of Facebook. Facebook owns four of the most dominant social networking and messaging platforms in the world – the Facebook App, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. It monetises these platforms by selling advertising slots to millions of businesses globally.

Why do we own it?

The average US user spends over an hour a day on Facebook and Instagram combined. This depth of engagement, paired with Meta's unmatched ability to deliver an audience of over 4 billion users to advertisers, has made it one of the most valuable advertising platforms in the world. We see significant growth ahead as Meta continues to capture share of advertising budgets shifting from TV to digital, and as it uses AI to both deepen user engagement and sharpen ad targeting, strengthening its value proposition to advertisers over time.

What does it do?

Microsoft is a dominant software business that develops, licenses, sells and supports software products, and is viewed by many IT departments as their most critical vendor. Products and services include many well-known franchises such as the Windows operating system, Office productivity applications, Azure cloud services, LinkedIn and Xbox.

Why do we own it?

Microsoft Azure is well positioned to benefit from enterprises continuing to shift computing and storage workloads to the cloud, as well as the rapid growth in AI-related compute demand. Microsoft should also benefit from embedding generative AI into its core productivity software, supported by its broad distribution, deep enterprise relationships and critical role within corporate IT environments.

What does it do?

MSCI is a leading provider of indexes, benchmarks, index data, analytics, sustainability and climate data, and private asset investment tools for the global financial industry. Its products help investors define investment universes, benchmark performance, measure portfolio risk, construct ETFs and build custom portfolios. MSCI serves 6.7k clients in more than 100 countries, with around $21tn in assets benchmarked to MSCU indexes. Its flagship indexes include the All-Country World Index (ACWI), the World Index (all Developed Markets), and the Emerging Market Index.

Why do we own it?

MSCI has attractive growth tailwinds, including the growth of ETFs, increasing investment in themes (for example, robotics or space exploration), indexation of other asset classes (such as fixed income and private assets), and greater focus on ESG & climate. MSCI is one of the most important global index providers and has market-leading products to capture each of these tailwinds. MSCI benefits from competitive advantages driven by strong brand, switching barriers, scale, and network effects, which all result in high customer retention rates. MSCI has a long-tenured management team with material ownership in the business, aligning them well with shareholders.

What does it do?

Netflix is the world’s leading streaming service with almost 350 million members in over 190 countries. Members pay a monthly subscription fee to access TV series, documentaries, feature films and mobile games across a wide range of genres and languages.

Why do we own it?

Netflix’s scale in creating original content and ability to spread this cost over a huge global audience base gives it a significant cost advantage versus peers. This advantage will likely get stronger with time, and drive subscriber growth for many years to come – there are 750 million potential subscribers globally (ex-China). Its superior value proposition as the cheapest streaming service per hour viewed, underpins the company’s ability to continue raising prices at a rate above inflation.

What does it do?

Nvidia is a computer chip designer specialising in GPUs (graphics processing units) with ~80% share of the accelerated compute market. Its GPUs are used in datacentres (circa 90% of its earnings), robotics, gaming, professional visualisation and autonomous driving. Demand for its GPUs in the datacentre is driven by an increasing proportion of high performance or accelerated computer processing e.g. simulations, machine learning, training and inferencing large artificial intelligence models.

Why do we own it?

Nvidia’s long-standing investment in chip hardware, software and networking has created a deep ecosystem and meaningful switching costs for customers; and we expect Nvidia to remain the dominant platform for accelerated computing. Demand for accelerated computing is likely to remain structurally high, driven by growth in AI training, inference and other data-intensive workloads. Nvidia also benefits from continuity of leadership, with co-founder Jensen Huang continuing to lead the company alongside an experienced management team.

What does it do?

Old Dominion Freight Line (ODFL) is the second largest less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier in North America. LTL is defined as shipments that don’t fill a whole truck. Due to having multiple customers, each requiring additional handling and sorting, LTL operators can charge higher prices than the more commoditised full-truckload (FTL) industry.

Why do we own it?

ODFL’s reputation as the industry standard is underpinned by unmatched service quality: its on-time delivery rate consistently exceeds 99% and damage claims rates are impressively low (0.1 %). For an unprecedented 15 consecutive years, ODFL has been named the #1 national LTL carrier in quality by Mastio & Company—based on 28 customer satisfaction metrics. This, plus the strong corporate culture of “helping the World Keep Promises”, or going the extra mile for the customer, has driven strong market share gains and industry leading profit margins. The freight sector is experiencing the worst recession in decades, following significant COVID over-earning. This gave us an opportunity to add the company to the portfolio.

What does it do?

Salesforce is the dominant provider of cloud customer relationship management (CRM) technology globally. 90% of Fortune 500 companies use Salesforce’s business-critical software offerings, such as Slack (communications) and Tableau (data visualisation); and its latest AI agent offering AgentForce.

Why do we own it?

Salesforce is well-positioned to continue penetrating deeper into its enterprise accounts; both through its existing product suite, but increasingly through its AI and data offerings. Salesforce is using its position as a trusted enterprise partner to build early traction with Agentforce, its agentic AI offering. We expect this early momentum to translate into accelerating growth over the coming years as adoption broadens through its customer base.

What does it do?

Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) is the world's largest and most advanced semiconductor chip manufacturer, producing the cutting-edge semiconductors that power AI, smartphones, self-driving cars, and robotics for customers like Apple and Nvidia. TSMC has over 90% market share in the manufacturing of the most advanced chips.

Why do we own it?

We own TSMC because its scale, technical know-how, and deep customer relationships have created a wide moat, with competitors’ years behind on the leading-edge manufacturing processes. The rising cost and complexity of each new generation of chips makes the gap increasingly harder to close. The result is an exceptionally high-quality business with strong returns on capital and a long runway of profitable growth ahead as the world consumes ever more advanced chips.

What does it do?

Tencent is China’s largest online gaming company with over 50% market share and also owns WeChat, the leading social network and messaging platform with over a billion users. The WeChat app is deeply ingrained into daily life in China with the average user spending an hour a day on the platform doing everything from messaging, social feeds, news feeds, e-commerce, hailing cabs, ordering food, booking travel, paying utility bills and watching videos. Tencent also has leading positions in a range of adjacencies including digital payments (WeChat Pay), music & video streaming, and cloud computing.

Why do we own it?

While Tencent’s core business is its gaming business, the WeChat platform is allowing it to create significant value in adjacent areas such as advertising, consumer AI and financial services which we do not think is fairly reflected in the current share price. The digital advertising opportunity in China is large and rapidly growing, and WeChat is ideally placed to capitalise given its share of online time and ability to connect businesses with users.

What does it do?

Tradeweb is a leading global operator of electronic marketplaces for rates, credit, equities and money markets. Its platform facilities electronic trading, improving price discovery and streamlining post-trade workflows. Tradeweb serves more than 3,000 clients globally and operates across more than 85 countries.

Why do we own it?

We own Tradeweb for its dominant position in a structurally growing, oligopolistic market where accelerating electronic adoption, strong network effects, and a proven track record of innovation support a long runway of sustained revenue and market share growth.

What does it do?

Tyler Technologies is the leading provider of essential software to over 15,000 local and state governments in the US. Tyler is the only company that can offer a full suite of products covering property tax systems and court management systems through-to 911 dispatch systems.

Why do we own it?

It is estimated that two-thirds of local governments use in-house systems or outdated software products that are no longer supported. Security issues and rising maintenance costs are driving a shift to modern systems, creating a long growth runway. We previously owned Tyler and took advantage of the indiscriminate sell-off in software names to add it back to the portfolio.

What does it do?

Uber is the world’s largest on-demand mobility and delivery platform, connecting consumers with rides, food delivery, grocery and retail delivery, and freight services. Its platform operates in over 70 countries with 199 million customers. Its scale and self-reinforcing network effects (more riders -> more drivers -> more riders) underpin its moat.

Why do we own it?

We initiated a position in late December after a 20% share price fall driven by concerns that autonomous vehicle (AV) companies such as Tesla and Waymo would reduce reliance on Uber’s demand-aggregation platform. We think the AV market will be fragmented, and that AV fleet owners and manufacturers will require Uber’s dominant platform to drive volume and utilisation.

What does it do?

Zoetis is the global leader in animal health, owning many of the leading brands of drugs used to treat cats, dogs and livestock.

Why do we own it?

Zoetis was first to market and continues to hold the dominant position across several of the largest animal health therapy categories, including dermatology and osteoarthritis pain. As these franchises mature, we expect a strong pipeline, including a first-in-category chronic kidney disease product, to sustain Zoetis's growth over the next several years.