SOI is a UK-listed investment company which aims to deliver income and capital growth through investments in dividend-paying companies across the Asia Pacific region, excluding Japan. Lead manager Richard Sennitt, who has over 30 years of experience in Asian markets, has managed the trust since 2020. The fund adopts a bottom-up, fundamentally driven approach supported by a large team of analysts based throughout Asia. In this podcast, Richard explains the strategy, highlighting its emphasis on strong, sustainable dividends over mere high yields; he discusses the company's regional and sector allocation, and the rationale for portfolio weightings towards Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia, and away from India and China. He outlines the methodology behind its rigorous bottom-up stock selection, and how the company is responding to geopolitical developments that are affecting Asia. He also discusses a positive shift in dividend culture across Asia, particularly in markets like Korea and Taiwan, and emphasizes the growing opportunity for income investors in the region.
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28:45
The Two Johns
<p>Welcome to The Two Johns, the investment trust podcast brought to you by the website <a href="http://www.johnbaronportfolios.co.uk/" target="_blank">www.johnbaronportfolios.co.uk</a>. Each month, John Baron joins former Investors' Chronicle editor John Hughman to discuss the big themes dominating the investment landscape and the important issues affecting the sector, while explaining how these are influencing the way the website's ten live investment trust portfolios are being managed.</p><p>In this episode, they follow up last month's discussion of stickier than expected inflation by explaining how the website's portfolios are positioned to navigate this economic backdrop, before turning to chapter 7 of John's book (The Financial Times Guide to Investment Trusts) to look at the AIC's Dividend Heroes, and how investment trusts are uniquely positioned to deliver such unblemished income histories.</p>
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43:32
JPMorgan European Growth & Income (JEGI)
JEGI is a London-listed investment company offering investors diversified access to European equities outside the UK and is a core holding within several portfolios. Managed by Tim Lewis alongside Zana Shuhabber and Alexander Fitzalan Howard, the company aims to deliver both capital growth and a reliable income stream, targeting a 4% dividend yield paid quarterly. The company employs a flexible and balanced strategy, seeking to perform across a range of market conditions by focusing on stock selection and maintaining exposure to both growth and value segments across Europe.In this interview, Tim Lewis outlines the trust’s approach to investing in focusing on high-quality businesses with underappreciated value and momentum using both quantitative and fundamental analysis to uncover opportunities across sectors and market caps, including recently increased exposure to disruptive European small caps. He discusses key investment themes include infrastructure, electrification, and why he believes Europe is improving its competitiveness amid global volatility. Lewis also highlights the trust’s strong recent performance, driven by investment in companies like Italy’s UniCredit bank andGermany’s Heidelberg Materials, and notes optimism about Europe's structural recovery, long-term fiscal initiatives, and supportive monetary conditions.
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32:23
Impax Environmental Markets (IEM) – part 2: the managers
IEM is a specialist investment company that provides investors with exposure to businesses delivering solutions to global environmental challenges, in particular those that enable the more sustainable use of resources including energy and water. Unlike trusts heavily invested in renewable infrastructure, IEM invests directly in equities around the world to tap into long-term structural growth trends driven by the global transition toward a more sustainable and resource-efficient economy.In part two of our IEM interview series, we speak once again to co-manager Fotis Chatzimichalakis to understand how IEM has maintained resilience amid recent market volatility by limiting exposure to policy-sensitive areas like renewables and focusing on more stable, high-growth businesses supporting resource efficiency which offer their customer significant cost savings as well as solving environmental challenges. He outlines significant allocations in water infrastructure and energy management, and the importance of geographic diversification into emerging markets like India and China which are investing heavily in environmental technologies. And he underlines the importance of data-driven digital technologies that support the drive for resource efficiency as a particularly attractive investment opportunity.
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The Two Johns
Welcome to The Two Johns, the investment trust podcast brought to you by the website. Each month, John Baron joins former Investors' Chronicle editor John Hughman to discuss the big themes dominating the investment landscape and the important issues affecting the sector, while explaining how these are influencing the way the website's ten live investment trust portfolios are being managed.In this episode's three sections, they take a look at the factors which are likely to keep inflation higher and more volatile than previously expected, not least ongoing geopolitical tension; how the ability to borrow is another structural advantage enjoyed by investment companies over their open-ended counterparts, and how recent increases in gearing point to renewed optimism among managers;and how a continued narrowing of investment trust discounts to NAV from unusually elevated levels offers opportunity for value-conscious investors.
Previously only available to subscribers of www.johnbaronportfolios.co.uk, you can now listen here to the interviews we’ve conducted with leading investment trust managers, to our regular interviews in future, and to our new monthly podcast (The Two Johns) where John Baron and John Hughman will be discussing the latest investment and sector themes which influence how the website’s 10 live investment trust portfolios achieve a range of risk-adjusted strategies and income levels. The website’s members are notified whenever portfolio changes are made.
UK