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Risk Considerations

  1. The Fund is actively managed and invests mainly in a diversified portfolio of shares of technology development or utilization companies, with a focus on leading global technology companies.
  2. Investment in the Fund involves risks, including general investment risk, equity market risk, risks associated with depositary receipts, sector concentration risk, exclusion criteria risk, geographic concentration risk, issuer concentration risk and currency risk which may result in loss of a part or the entire amount of your investment. 
  3. The Fund may use derivatives for hedging and efficient portfolio management and is subject to derivatives risk. Exposure to derivatives may lead to a risk of significant loss by the Fund.
  4. The value of the Fund can be volatile and could go down substantially.
  5. Investors should not invest in the Fund solely based on this website.

 

Investment involves risk. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of current or future results and should not be the sole factor of consideration when selecting a product or strategy.

SICAV
Global Technology Equity Fund
Seeks to increase the value of its shares, over the long term, through growth in the value of its investments.
ISIN LU1244139660
FACTSHEET
KFS
30-Nov-2023 - Dom Rizzo, Portfolio Manager,
We continue to believe artificial intelligence (AI) offers significant growth opportunities for companies in our portfolio. We remain positive about technology stocks going forward and believe the data points we have received this earnings season have been thesis-affirming for our outlook on AI and, specifically, digital semiconductors.

Overview
Strategy
Fund Summary
Actively managed and invests mainly in a diversified portfolio of shares of technology development or utilisation companies, with a focus on leading global technology companies. The companies may be anywhere in the world, including emerging markets.
Performance - Net of Fees

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

Effective 1 July 2024, the comparator benchmark for the fund changed to MSCI AC World Information Technology 10/40 Net Index. Prior to this change, the comparator benchmark was MSCI AC World Information Technology Index Net. Historical benchmark representations have not been restated.

30-Nov-2023 - Dom Rizzo, Portfolio Manager,
Global equities advanced strongly in November amid hopes that central banks may not have to raise interest rates further to combat inflation. Within the portfolio, our stock choices in semiconductors contributed to relative returns. Shares of a semiconductor capital equipment company that focuses on back-end assembly equipment for advanced packaging applications rose as investors appreciated its unique role in the semiconductor manufacturing space. We like the company’s dominant market share in hybrid bonding, the most advanced and capital-intensive method of packaging, and high-margin structure. Our lack of exposure to telecommunications equipment also aided relative results as the subsector advanced but trailed the benchmark during the month. Not owning a large global vendor of networking products including routers and switches, contributed to relative returns as management lowered guidance for 2024 in its most recent earnings report. We believe there are higher-quality investment opportunities elsewhere in the portfolio, and we are focusing our investments there. Alternatively, our avoidance of business services detracted from relative results as the subsector outperformed the index during the month.
31-Mar-2022 - Alan Tu, Portfolio Manager,

While the market was less focused on bottom-up fundamentals and more focused on broad factor movements, we believe the portfolio is well positioned for medium-term outcomes and that its fundamental approach will eventually be rewarded. Our research indicates that the major trends that we invest behind remain strong. Nevertheless, we continued to look for areas where we can reduce our exposure to unpaid risk.

Software

We bought shares of companies focused on building innovative solutions to help businesses better manage the growing volume and variety of data and develop collaboration tools to increase efficiencies.

  • We bought shares in Snowflake, a cloud data warehousing platform.� We like Snowflake's cloud native architecture, adept management team, and opportunities to penetrate a large and growing market driven by increasing investments in machine learning and artificial intelligence.
  • We bought Atlassian, a leading provider workflow and collaboration software for enterprises. In our view, the company epitomizes a new breed of software developers that directly target users in marketing its products, employing a low-cost flywheel approach rather than a traditional top-down sales model. We appreciate the long growth runway of the company as it benefits from the secular tailwinds of digital transformation, cloud migration, and hybrid work.
  • At a time when many companies are interested in productivity tools, we bought shares in MongoDB, a document-oriented database solutions company with a sticky client base and fast-growing cloud business. We like the company's growth trajectory as enterprises look for new ways to scale and structure data across on-premises and cloud infrastructures.

Semiconductors

In semiconductors, we sold share of our core holdings and maintained an underweight position. Based on our research, we think this industry is late in its business cycle.

  • Seeking to reduce risk, we sold shares in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, a leading-edge process foundry, to balance risk and reward. We see this firm outgrowing competitors through incremental outsourcing from manufacturers and design houses.

Internet

Seeking to balance risk and reward, we sold share in consumer internet, especially companies facing regulatory risks or increased competition.

  • We sold shares of Sea seeking to better match risk and reward. Sea is an internet platform focused on gaming, social media, e-commerce, digital wallet, and digital finance. While we are attracted to Sea's ability to lead secular trends within fast-growing markets, we will monitor how the company evolves its growth strategy to potentially leverage new sources of cash.
  • We sold shares of Tencent Holdings, China's largest video game and social media platform, seeking to balance risk and return as the company tries to find ways to regain momentum amid rising competition and ongoing regulatory interventions. We appreciate Tencent's global position, its savvy management team, and its solid basis for long-term growth.

Media & Entertainment

Slowing growth and increased competition caused us to sell certain media and video gaming stocks.

  • We expected to see Netflix's strong slate of programming draw in more new subscribers than it did in the fourth quarter. Instead, the company missed subscriber addition estimates and guided for a sub-par first quarter, settling on a lower-than-expected revenue trajectory. We sold it in favor of other opportunities.
  • We sold shares in Roblox during the period seeking to better align risk and reward. We are attracted to the powerful social network effects Roblox utilizes in drawing in new active users and creators. This sets up a positive feedback loop and helps the platform widen its moat, expand its addressable market, and potentially deliver durable earnings.

Industrials

Supply chain problems continued to hamper electric vehicle (EV) makers' ability to meet robust demand, with some models requiring months-long delivery wait times. Adding to these woes, the war in Ukraine and associated trade conflicts caused supply shortages and rising prices for the raw materials needed in lithium batteries used to power EVs.

  • We sold shares of Tesla seeking to manage our position size. We appreciate that Tesla is the lead disruptor in the electric vehicle market, leveraging its advantages in manufacturing, software, and brand. We expect it to eventually be able to move down the cost curve and unlock new parts of the market while increasing unit margins.
30-Nov-2023 - Dom Rizzo, Portfolio Manager,
Our positions in consumer internet companies continue to benefit from improving fundamentals in terms of e-commerce demand trends, operational efficiency, and the ability to show improvement in earnings and free cash flow. Our largest holding in the subsector is a leading e-commerce platform and reflects our belief that the company’s e-commerce division and margins will improve over the next year. We also maintain a position in a leading US online food delivery platform. We continue to like the positioning of the company within its industry as well as its strong management team.

Disclosure on Vendor Indices can be found here.