Comgest Growth America
Comgest Growth America is a concentrated portfolio of 25-35 high-quality companies with long-term growth prospects. The portfolio management team focuses on seeking a range of small-, mid- and large-cap companies in a variety of sectors which are driving and benefiting from growth in the US economy. These companies are expected to offer predictable and sustainable earnings growth, while also meeting the company’s strict ESG criteria.
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Our Opinion
This fund benefits from a very clear process and experienced management team that have helped guide the fund to outstanding performance throughout their tenures. The fund’s high-quality approach can lead to periods of relative underperformance when more speculative areas of the market are in favour, but it has delivered excellent long-term results under Christophe Nagy's stewardship. We would expect the fund to continue to repay investors' trust in the future.
Fund Managers
Cristophe Nagy, Co-Manager
Christophe Nagy, an Analyst and Portfolio Manager at Comgest since 2009, specializes in US equities and is a member of the firm's Investment Committee. He co-leads Comgest’s US equity strategy and has been crucial in developing the US equity team and research efforts. Prior to Comgest, Christophe worked at Mercer Consulting, Carmignac Gestion, and Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management. He holds a Master’s degree in Engineering from Ecole des Mines in St-Etienne, France, and an MBA from INSEAD.
Justin Streeter, Co-Manager
Justin Streeter, an Analyst and Portfolio Manager at Comgest since 2015, specializes in US equities and co-leads the US Equity strategy. He is instrumental in idea generation and sector research. Prior to Comgest, Justin worked as an M&A Healthcare Analyst at J.P. Morgan in San Francisco and London, and began his career with Macquarie Capital Partners in London and Société Générale in Paris. He holds a Master’s degree in Management and Corporate Finance from Emlyon Business School and is a CFA® charterholder.
Louis Citroën, Co-Manager
Louis Citroën joined Comgest in 2019 as an Analyst and Portfolio Manager focusing on US equities. He co-manages the US Equity strategy and contributes to idea generation by researching a wide range of US companies. Before Comgest, Louis was an Equity Analyst at Arete Research in London, covering telecoms and media stocks, and worked as a Small Cap Equity Analyst at Financière de l’Echiquier. He began his career as a management consultant at Oliver Wyman in Paris. Louis holds a Master’s degree in Management from ESCP Business School and is a CFA® charterholder.
Rémi Adam, Co-Manager
Rémi Adam, an Analyst and Portfolio Manager at Comgest since 2019, specializes in US equities. He began his career in 2014 as a Global Equity Analyst at Amundi in London. Rémi later worked in Paris and Frankfurt as an Equity Analyst at Oddo Securities, covering media and telecom stocks for three years. He holds a Master’s degree in Risk & Finance from EDHEC Business School and is a CFA® charterholder.
Risk
Risk monitoring is fully integrated within their investment process and is carried out across both investment and operational teams daily. The fund is very high conviction and concentrated with around 30 holdings, so there is stock-specific risk and investors are reliant on the team getting their investment choices correct. When buying new stock the team will typically start with a 1% position and build upon that. There are no hard sector or country limits, but the portfolio is carefully managed to ensure it is well diversified.
Company Description
Comgest was founded in 1985 and is entirely owned by its employees through a partnership structure. Equity is not restricted to senior managers and the company is proud that approximately 75% of Comgest employees are shareholders. Comgest is set up to do one thing – manage quality growth equity portfolios for the long term. In this, it has been extremely successful and it now runs around $30 billion of assets. All Comgest funds have the same philosophy and process, which is applied to different parts of the world and each one is high conviction and concentrated, unconstrained by any benchmark. Comgest believes continuity - of their team, style and approach - is its greatest asset. Comgest was awarded the Elite Provider for Equities rating in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
Investment process
The team start by carrying out a broad screen of the 2,200 strong investment universe. They focus their analysis on key quality growth criteria. This includes the evaluation of business models, organic growth potential, barriers to entry, sustainability and management quality.
This initial screening narrows the list to around 160-180 companies. From there, the managers carry out detailed research, analysing each company's financial strength, growth prospects, competitive position and sustainability credentials. They also meet company management teams and other industry experts to build a deeper understanding of each business.
Only the highest-quality companies make it through to the next stage, where the team assesses whether the shares offer an attractive valuation. They build detailed forecasts to estimate a company's long-term earnings potential and use a range of valuation measures to ensure they are not overpaying for future growth. ESG factors are also integrated throughout the research process.
The final portfolio is built through extensive team discussion and reflects the managers' highest-conviction ideas. Rather than owning hundreds of companies, the fund typically invests in around 25 to 35 businesses, allowing each holding to make a meaningful contribution to returns while remaining focused on companies the team knows well.
Risk
Risk monitoring is fully integrated within their investment process and is carried out across both investment and operational teams daily. The fund is very high conviction and concentrated with around 30 holdings, so there is stock-specific risk and investors are reliant on the team getting their investment choices correct. When buying new stock the team will typically start with a 1% position and build upon that. There are no hard sector or country limits, but the portfolio is carefully managed to ensure it is well diversified.
ESG
ESG - Integrated
They have a dedicated ESG team of analysts that perform fundamental company research together with the lead investment analyst for each company. They prepare and update an ESG assessment which results in the assigning of an ESG Quality Level ranging from 1 (leader) to 4 (improvement expected) for each stock. The team also has access to multiple ESG data providers that complements their own research and they maintain a proprietary ESG Dashboard to collate ESG metrics at stock and portfolio level.
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