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Invesco Global Focus
Invesco Global Focus is a high conviction, concentrated fund, which invests in structural growth winners.
The philosophy behind the portfolio, which contains around 35 stocks, is to buy companies which are winning and then let them compound over time. Those with entrenched competitive advantages and attractive valuations are preferred.
Our opinion
The manager's approach is refreshingly simple: understand the structural trends which are changing the world and then invest in the best companies which are benefitting from these trends. John combines this simple philosophy with detailed fundamental research and management meetings on individual stocks. The fund is very high conviction both in the process and the portfolio. Invesco Global Focus is stylistic and has a heavy growth bias and may be vulnerable to short term swings in market momentum. John became co-manager in July 2022 and lead manager in June 2023.
Company description
Founded in 1969, Invesco forms part of Invesco Ltd, a global independent investment management company with more than 7000 employees in more than 25 countries. Its focus is on equities, but it also invests in fixed interest and other asset types. In October 2018, Invesco Perpetual dropped its Perpetual branding and is now simply known as Invesco.
Fund manager
John Delano holds a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Duke University. Before joining Invesco in 2007, he spent nine years at Putnam Investments as a derivatives and equity analyst covering large-cap growth focusing on hardware, software and telecommunication services as well as retail. He is also a CFA charterholder.
John DelanoFund manager
Investment process
The manager has a no nonsense philosophy and investment process. The strategy is simple but effective: identify a long term persistent trend, such as cloud computing, and find the best businesses in that area.
There are monumental shifts happening in the real world providing tremendous opportunities and risk. It is critical to invest on the right side of these trends. Current trends the fund considers are the rise of e-commerce, digital payments, cloud computing, network security software, life sciences tools, mobile technologies, social media and digital customer service.
The manager believes only three questions are worth asking which drives the fundamental research: Is this business ever worth owning? At what price? And is management working for shareholders?
He invests in companies for the long term and looks to benefit as growth compounds over time. A typical investment time horizon is 3-5 years.
The manager typically meets with the management of each company held in the portfolio once a year.
ESG
ESG - Integrated
The straightforward approach of this fund incorporates ESG issues from a philosophical point of view. This approach is to understand firms with enduring products or services, that are benefitting from long-term structural trends, with defendable positions. Holistically, this is likely to lead to those with sustainable practices, that treat stakeholders of the business fairly, and have a responsible approach with regards to environmental practices. Firms that don’t have these traits are unlikely to match the managers’ concept of structural winners. To supplement the team's own work, it has access to Invesco’s in-house tool, ESGIntel. This tool takes inputs from the entire scope of a business’ operations, including raw material sourcing, treatment of suppliers, and internal policies. This fund has a particular focus on the governance element. The manager is looking for management teams that have alignment with minority shareholders, have strong capital discipline and who think with a long-term outlook.
Risk
The fund is highly concentrated but carefully constructed to ensure good diversification across themes and sectors. It invests in structural winners and avoids cyclical stocks which are typically more vulnerable to a market sell off. The portfolio is carefully balanced for risk and reward with higher weightings going to the best ideas.
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