Schroder GAIA Egerton Equity

The Schroder GAIA Egerton Equity fund employs a fundamental, research-intensive, stock-picking approach to investing, focusing on large-cap stocks with a global remit. The UCITS strategy was launched in 2009, and under John Armitage’s stewardship, it has delivered strong risk-adjusted returns across market cycles. At the core of the strategy is a focus on identifying companies operating in well-understood businesses, where valuations provide a margin of safety while revenues and earnings are growing. Quality of earnings is a key factor in the stock selection process, with the team leveraging forensic accounting expertise. For the short book, the team generally seeks to identify companies with poor capital structures, stagnant earnings, and trading at high multiples. The final portfolio is relatively diversified, with 30-60 long positions and 30-60 short positions, with exposures primarily driven by bottom-up considerations. The fund is typically sector-agnostic, with factor/sector tilts largely driven by the prevailing opportunity set (in recent years the portfolio has been biased to the US). The fund generally maintains a net long bias (around 70% net long on average) and makes little use of leverage, with gross exposure generally between 120-150%. Egerton currently manages approximately $15bn across long-only and long/short strategies.