Portfolio Manager comment Coeli Global Select December 2021

25.6 percent – the results of our investments during 2021. Our portfolio of the world’s finest companies continues to deliver robust returns and 25.6 percent feels like a great result, especially given the 19.4 percent we managed during the tumultuous year of 2020 and the 32.2 percent of the year before that. Measured against our benchmark, the fund’s annual return fell 1.7 pp short, but it is 22.6 pp ahead of the benchmark over three years and 40.7 pp ahead since we established Coeli Global Select.

Most of our companies delivered good results for 2021. Looking at the five that contributed the most, we find two building materials companies, SIKA and Martin Marietta; one hospitals company, HCA; and two tech companies, Microsoft and NVIDIA. Our method for finding winning stocks is the same regardless of industry, and our fund is well-diversified. On a less positive note, during 2021, we had three companies in emerging countries whose markets had a tough year: Magazine Luiza and Pagseguro in Brazil and Allegro in Poland.

Key market events and trends (what has performance most?)
Several times before, we have mentioned the sizeable labour shortages in the US. Together with the enormous infrastructure investments and consumers’ general willingness to buy, this will lead to relatively high inflation there going forward. The US Federal Reserve won’t accept too high inflation though and so we are facing a period of interest rate hikes in the US and a stronger dollar. On a purely mathematical basis, according to the principle that the present value of a financial asset is the value of discounted cash flow, then higher interest rates would lead to lower stock prices. On the other hand, higher profits lead to higher share prices, and during 2022, we expect these two schools of thought to face off against one another. The point has been missed: over time, interest rates can only be pushed up so far, while companies’ profits can grow exponentially, and so profit growth always wins out in the end.

You can read more about our latest visit to the US and the solid profit growth we see in Mastercard here (in Swedish), and then you’ll understand why we are so bullish on the fund’s future.

Portfolio changes
We made no changes to the portfolio during December.

The fund’s positioning – our market expectations
The fund has now been investing for more than seven successful and exciting years. During 2022, we plan to upgrade our holdings further so that the fund is even more competitive. But more on this in our next newsletter!