Colonial First State launches Global Stewardship Fund with partner Baillie Gifford

Scott Tully

Colonial First State (CFS) has expanded its strategic Alliance Partnership with global investment management firm Baillie Gifford, with the launch of the Baillie Gifford Global Stewardship Fund (“the Fund”). The Fund gives investors access to a stock-driven global portfolio that combines the best elements of stewardship, governance, and specialist regional expertise to invest in responsible growth businesses.

Scott Tully, General Manager of Investments at Colonial First State, said the Fund will provide investors with a strong portfolio of global stocks that are focused on long-term performance and corporate best practice.

“We believe good governance and stewardship are vital to the long-term success and growth of a company,” said Mr Tully.

“Interest in responsible and sustainable investing has continued to grow amongst investors and the industry. We believe Baillie Gifford’s investment approach and active engagement with companies on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, as well as on a company’s strategic direction, corporate culture, and shareholder alignment, will ensure sound long-term performance for investors.”

Since its inception in December 2015, Baillie Gifford’s Global Stewardship UK composite^[1] has achieved a net return of 5.7% p.a. over the MSCI All Country World Index benchmark (as at 30 June 2019).

Growth of a global partnership

Baillie Gifford was first appointed by CFS as an investment manager within CFS’ FirstChoice Multi-Manager portfolios over a decade ago; a mandate that has experienced strong outperformance over that period.

Last year, CFS launched Baillie Gifford’s Long Term Global Growth Fund (LTGG) to Australian retail investors, offering a differentiated and proven investment approach underpinned by long-term, committed portfolios that aim to anticipate change in the market over the next decade.

“The launch of the LTGG Fund brought Baillie Gifford’s unique investment capability to the Australian retail market for the very first time. The Fund’s impressive performance track record is achieved by a purely stock-driven global equity approach, where the team focuses on high conviction investing for the long term” said Mr Tully.

“The new Baillie Gifford Global Stewardship offering employs this same high conviction, bottom-up approach, while also seeking out responsible growth stocks that have well-aligned management,” added Mr Tully.

Anthony Tait, Partner at Baillie Gifford, said the partnership with CFS enables the firm to reach retail and wholesale investors with its actively managed investment solutions.

“This partnership gives Baillie Gifford the opportunity to utilise CFS’ significant distribution footprint and in-depth knowledge of the Australian intermediary market, while building on a decade long relationship,” said Mr Tait.

“Since launching our flagship equity strategy in Australia last year, we have experienced strong investor demand for this stock-driven, high performance fund. We believe the Global Stewardship Fund will offer Australian investors another high-performance, quality portfolio of global stocks, with an added focus on stewardship and governance,” added Mr Tait.