Liontrust’s Anthony Cross and Julian Fosh struggled to generate outperformance in an “exhausting” 2014, but are sticking to their philosophy for 2015.
The pair struggled to beat the FTSE All Share index on both their £1.4bn Liontrust Special Situtations fund and the £227m Liontrust UK Growth fund last year.
Mr Cross said they had found 2014 “exhausting” and when they came to the end of the year they “hadn’t made much progress”.
Their Special Situations fund returned 0.9 per cent in 2014, compared to the index, the FTSE All-Share Index, which returned 1.2 per cent.
Similarly, their UK Growth fund underpreformed its index, also the FTSE All-Share, returning 1 per cent.
However, their return of 4.1 per cent on their £318m UK Smaller Companies fund fund blew away the return from the FTSE Small Cap ex ITs index, which fell by 2.7 per cent.
And the duo declared they are confident that their strategy of investing in “intellectual capital” will aid them in the coming year.
Mr Cross and Mr Fosh analyse stocks and invest based on “intangible company strengths that competitors struggle to reproduce”. These are what they call “invisible assets”.
One sector where they are finding a lot of these kinds of companies is in the healthcare sector. The duo own both AstraZenca and Shire. They hold 8.1 per cent of their Special Situations fund in the sector.
