In August, the Trust produced a flattish performance versus the index.

Our best performing positions included Novo Nordisk, RWE and Bawag. Novo Nordisk is benefitting from very strong growth in its core therapeutic areas, with margin strength driven by their leading competitive position. Innovation over recent years has been focused on obesity and the company have recently launched a pill for the US obesity market; demand has far outstripped supply for this product and this has led investors to start pricing in some significant growth in this franchise. RWE had had a weak start to 2021, with investors moving away from ESG-related investments and into more cyclical businesses. However, in recent weeks, RWE has announced strong results and investor appetite seems to be returning once again to the broad sector. Bawag has been a very strong performing banks position, especially over the past 12 months. There is a large capital return coming up in October and the company will also host a capital markets day where they will lay out their medium-term vision. Anticipation of these two events has supported the share price.

Our worst performing positions continue to be concentrated in our gaming exposures. As with last month, regulatory pressure in China is concerning investors and in addition, these businesses are seeing slower growth this year after a very strong 2020 helped by Covid-19. Our positions in Embracer, Stillfront and Prosus all detracted from performance during the month.

Recent results have continued to be largely favourable and have backed up our conviction in a number of our holdings. We have had another month of limited trading activity although we did decide to sell our position in Embracer and reduce our position in Prosus further. Our gaming exposure is now limited to small positions in both Prosus and Stillfront.

We are confident in our positioning and will continue to retain balance in our exposures by considering two types of business for investment; those where we see high and sustainable returns that are undervalued by the market and those companies where we can see a material improvement in medium term business prospects.

 

Cyclical Expand

Companies that sell discretionary consumer items, such as cars, or industries highly sensitive to changes in the economy, such as miners. The prices of equities and bonds issued by cyclical companies tend to be strongly affected by ups and downs in the overall economy, when compared to non-cyclical companies.

ESG Expand

Environmental, social and governance are three key criteria used to evaluate a company’s ethical impact and sustainable practices.

References made to individual securities should not constitute or form part of any offer or solicitation to issue, sell, subscribe, or purchase the security. Janus Henderson Investors, one of its affiliated advisors, or its employees, may have a position mentioned in the securities mentioned in the report.