Slater Growth
Slater Growth is a concentrated, high conviction fund that invests in UK equities. It has a strong bias towards smaller and medium-sized companies. The investment strategy is based on a 'growth at reasonable price' philosophy - looking for firms with strong competitive positions and solid cash generation, but not overpaying for them.
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Mark Slater co-founded Slater Investments in 1994 and serves as Chairman and Chief Investment Officer. He leads the Investment Committee for the company, which manages a hedge fund, unit trusts, and portfolios for pensions, charities, and high-net-worth individuals. Mark's recent accolades include Best 10 Year Performance for the Slater Growth Fund at the City of London Fund Awards 2018 and top rankings at TD Direct Investing and Money Observer Fund Awards. Before starting Slater Investments, Mark was a financial journalist and co-authored "The Zulu Principle," a best-selling investment book. He holds an MA in History from Cambridge University.
Mark Slater co-founded Slater Investments in 1994 and serves as Chairman and Chief Investment Officer. He leads the Investment Committee for the company, which manages a hedge fund, unit trusts, and portfolios for pensions, charities, and high-net-worth individuals. Mark's recent accolades include Best 10 Year Performance for the Slater Growth Fund at the City of London Fund Awards 2018 and top rankings at TD Direct Investing and Money Observer Fund Awards. Before starting Slater Investments, Mark was a financial journalist and co-authored "The Zulu Principle," a best-selling investment book. He holds an MA in History from Cambridge University.
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Company Description
Slater Investments was founded in 1994 by Mark Slater and Ralph Baber. It is a small boutique manager which specialises in small and mid UK equities. The company has a number of pooled UK equity funds which it manages, as well as segregated portfolios for institutional clients. The company also manages a long/short equity hedge fund.
Fund Performance
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Investment process
The core of Mark’s investment philosophy is that markets are inefficient, and stocks are regularly mispriced. He believes that buying growth shares with a disciplined value filter is the best way to exploit these errors in the market.
Ideas come from the investment team, brokers, company meetings or newsletters. However, the main starting point is the team’s own internal quantitative screen, which narrows the universe to a more manageable short list, by looking for certain characteristics.
After creating a short list of companies, further detailed analysis is undertaken, before the final stage which will involve meeting the company management and competitor analysis. When buying into a stock, it tends to be for the long term.
The portfolio tends to invest in between 25-60 companies.
Risk
Although the fund is multi-cap, it will tend to invest in more small and medium firms, which tend to be more risky than larger companies. That said, the fund has tended to be less volatile than its average peer over time. Mark does not exceed 20% ownership of a company across all the portfolio to manage liquidity risk (the ability to sell positions quickly). The fund is stylistic, and it does usually struggle when growth goes out of favour.
ESG
ESG - Limited
In September 2019, the company became a signatory to the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment. In 2020 the company increased the internal dedicated resources focusing on ESG. The fund does not have any hard exclusions, but the team believes ESG analysis is an important part of the risk process when analysing an investment. Mark has always taken corporate governance very seriously and is very aware of the potential risks of poor governance. Mark himself has also sat on the boards of a number of public companies. He and the team regularly meet and engage with firms in the portfolio. All shareholder votes cast on behalf of the fund are reviewed by the ESG team and are reported quarterly on the company’s website.
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