WS Amati Global Innovation
The WS Amati Global Innovation fund is a high-conviction, unconstrained global equity strategy that invests in companies benefiting from impactful, real-world innovation. The managers define innovation broadly, investing not only in the companies creating new technologies (“Pioneers”), but also those enabling their development (“Enablers”) and those adopting them to drive value (“Adopters”). This framework, applied systematically across identified “innovation frontiers,” allows the team to capture opportunities across the full value chain rather than relying solely on early-stage disruptors. The result is a diversified yet focused portfolio that seeks to exploit mispriced growth opportunities while keeping a tight grip on valuation, profitability and balance sheet quality.
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Our Opinion
This fund is run by an experienced two-person team in Mikhail and Graeme, whose combined mixed backgrounds in fields such as semiconductors, biochemistry, nanotechnology, accounting and finance, leave them well equipped to navigate the technical complexity at the heart of innovation investing. Their willingness to scour for lesser-known companies and take high-conviction, off-benchmark positions gives investors a genuinely differentiated product. The fund can be considered a complementary holding to a core global allocation - rather than a replacement for one - given the deliberate absence of the mega-cap US technology names that have dominated index returns in recent years.
Fund Managers
Mikhail Zverev, Co manager
Mikhail joined Amati in February 2022 to help launch the WS Amati Global Innovation Fund, where he focuses on identifying high-conviction global growth opportunities. He brings broad experience from senior roles at firms including Standard Life Investments, Aviva Investors, Citigroup, and First State Investments, where he led global equity strategies and managed concentrated portfolios. He began his career in 1998 and has worked across investment banking and equity analysis. Mikhail holds a BSc in semiconductor physics from St Petersburg State Technical University and an MSc in accounting and finance from the London School of Economics. He is also a CFA Charterholder.
Graeme Bencke, Co manager
Graeme joined Amati in 2022 to co-launch the WS Amati Global Innovation Fund, bringing nearly three decades of investment experience. He focuses on global growth equities and high-conviction portfolio construction. Prior to Amati, he held senior roles at PineBridge Investments, Torvius, Columbus Investment Partners, Gresham House, and F&C, where he managed global and specialist equity strategies. Earlier in his career, he served as a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force. He holds a BSc in business management from Royal Holloway, University of London, and holds the AIMR qualification.
Risk
The fund carries the typical risks associated with an unconstrained, concentrated global equity strategy, including market risk, currency risk and the potential for short-term volatility. Some investments are in smaller companies, which can be harder to buy or sell quickly in challenging market conditions. This may affect pricing when markets are stressed.
Risk is managed throughout the investment process. The managers focus on paying sensible valuations, investing in companies that generate cash, and balancing higher-risk ideas with more established businesses. Position sizes are also controlled to avoid overexposure to any single holding.
Additionally, a sell discipline is triggered when the expected growth has already been reflected in the share price, when new information weakens confidence in the original thesis, or when broader factors such as regulation, macroeconomic changes, or ESG concerns materially change the outlook.
Company Description
Amati is a specialist fund management boutique based in Scotland. It was formed after a management buyout of Noble Fund Managers from the Noble Group in January 2010. The Amati Global Innovation fund was launched in May 2022, with the company also running a number of other specialist strategies. The company is majority-owned by its staff, with the remaining 49% held by Mattioli Woods.
Investment process
The team's process is built around the conviction that innovation creates long-term value but is consistently mispriced by the market. The managers work through five distinct stages to translate this philosophy into a concentrated portfolio of around 40 names.
The starting point is the global listed equity universe, which the team narrows down by identifying "innovation frontiers" - areas where they see tangible, valuable innovation that is already making a difference but still has substantial room to grow. The focus is on proven progress rather than early ideas or long-term speculation. Current areas include photonics, electrification, defence technology, bioprocessing, radiopharmaceuticals, artificial intelligence and machine vision.
Next, within each frontier, the team maps the companies involved across industries and regions. They group them into three types:
• Pioneers: companies creating the innovation
• Enablers: companies supplying the tools, technology or infrastructure behind it
• Adopters: companies using the innovation to improve their own products or services
The third stage is detailed company analysis, where each candidate is assessed against four tests:
1. The innovation test asks whether there is genuine novelty, a proven benefit in cost or functionality, real adoption traction, and a sizeable addressable market.
2. The company test examines whether the business has material exposure to the innovation, a defensible competitive advantage, attractive financial economics and a credible path to growing profits and cash flow.
3. The ESGH test considers sustainability, governance, and exposure to countries with poor freedom scores.
4. The non-consensus test asks whether the team's view of the innovation impact is materially different from market expectations.
The fourth stage is stock selection. The team picks the highest-conviction ideas based on the optimal risk-reward expression of each theme, choosing in each case whether to back lower-risk Enablers or Adopters or higher-risk Pioneers.
The final stage is portfolio construction. Positions typically start at 2–3% and are increased as conviction grows to around 5%, and are capped at 10%. The result is a concentrated portfolio of between 30 and 40 holdings.
Risk
The fund carries the typical risks associated with an unconstrained, concentrated global equity strategy, including market risk, currency risk and the potential for short-term volatility. Some investments are in smaller companies, which can be harder to buy or sell quickly in challenging market conditions. This may affect pricing when markets are stressed.
Risk is managed throughout the investment process. The managers focus on paying sensible valuations, investing in companies that generate cash, and balancing higher-risk ideas with more established businesses. Position sizes are also controlled to avoid overexposure to any single holding.
Additionally, a sell discipline is triggered when the expected growth has already been reflected in the share price, when new information weakens confidence in the original thesis, or when broader factors such as regulation, macroeconomic changes, or ESG concerns materially change the outlook.
ESG
ESG analysis is fully integrated into the investment process through the dedicated ESGH test, where the additional H stands for human rights - reflecting Amati's view that the social impact of innovation, particularly in areas such as surveillance, law enforcement and military technology, is as important as environmental footprint. The firm is a signatory of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment and the UK Stewardship Code, and a supporter of the TCFD.
Amati's CEO Paul Jourdan is a founder trustee of Clean Trade, and the firm uses the annually updated Freedom House global freedom index to screen out natural resource investments in countries with severely authoritarian regimes. Engagement is direct and led by the fund managers themselves rather than mediated through brokers or proxy advisers, with voting records published quarterly on the firm's website.
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