A clear investment philosophy:
Great companies.

“Investing in great companies” - that sounds like an obvious investment strategy. Nevertheless, in a world in which the investment landscape is dominated by speed and the desire for quick returns, only a minority of investors seem to embrace a patient and long-term focus on quality companies.  

For us, investable quality companies achieve high returns on capital employed over the economic cycle. If companies deliver on this target, value creation will follow.

In our opinion, there are is only a small fraction of great companies whose returns are significantly above their cost of capital. These companies are characterized by distinct competitive strengths, strong management teams and a credible corporate culture.

A convincing corporate governance is also an important factor in our investment process. Far too often, management do not act in line with the interests stakeholders. We expect board members to act with integrity and to add expertise and engagement to the boards they serve. It is also important to us that the companies do not use significant debt in order to achieve high returns on capital.

Finally, we are convinced that we serve our investors’ interests best, if we focus on our circles of competence. Hence, we have excluded certain sectors and certain type of companies from our investable universe.

Our beliefs are based on the following thoughts:

• Smart capital allocation is the foundation for future growth
• A global focus on a small investable universe is better than attempting to be a jack of all trades
• Our long-term investment horizon implies low turnover
• We look for genuine insights and are sceptical about routine information
• Staying close to an index is not helpful when it comes to finding great companies. Hence, we do not attempt to outperform a benchmark. We rather try to find great companies we can own for the long term.