WS Montanaro Global Select
WS Montanaro Global Select is an unconstrained quality growth strategy that scours the globe in search of the best small and mid-cap companies. This high-conviction fund looks for businesses that are profitable, have a long runway of growth and offer sustainable competitive advantages.
Our Opinion
Fund Managers
Expand
Fund Managers
Close
George graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2005 with a BA in Management Studies and an MA with Distinction in Corporate Strategy & Governance. He started his career at Aon Benfield in their ReSolutions department, specializing in insurance and reinsurance capital and runoff issues, and earned a Diploma in Insurance. George is also a CFA Charterholder. He joined Montanaro in 2010 and is the Fund Manager for the European Income Fund, European Smaller Companies Fund, European Smaller Companies Trust, and the Global Select Fund. He also covers Healthcare and Insurance sectors as an Analyst.
Charles graduated with an honours degree in Anthropology from Durham University in 1976. After four years in industry, he joined Merrill Lynch in 1980 as a private client broker, then moved to Dean Witter Reynolds in 1984 and Drexel Burnham Lambert in 1987, where he was a top institutional broker and worked in high-yield bonds. In 1990, he became a Director of investment banking at MMG Patricof (now Apax Partners), focusing on smaller UK companies. Charles founded Montanaro in 1991 to specialize in European smaller companies. He has launched several successful funds and served on the boards of public smaller companies.
George graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2005 with a BA in Management Studies and an MA with Distinction in Corporate Strategy & Governance. He started his career at Aon Benfield in their ReSolutions department, specializing in insurance and reinsurance capital and runoff issues, and earned a Diploma in Insurance. George is also a CFA Charterholder. He joined Montanaro in 2010 and is the Fund Manager for the European Income Fund, European Smaller Companies Fund, European Smaller Companies Trust, and the Global Select Fund. He also covers Healthcare and Insurance sectors as an Analyst.
Read More
Risk
Read more
Back
Company Description
Montanaro is a small and medium-sized companies’ specialist renowned for its large team of analysts and high-quality small-cap research. The company started off in the UK before growing globally as its success has continued. The firm was founded by Charles Montanaro in 1991 and now looks after a few billion for clients. It is private and independently owned.
Fund Performance
Close
Risk
Close
Investment process
WS Montanaro Global Select fund champions the firm’s ‘quality growth’ style. The team seek to identify high-quality businesses from a global universe of 12,000 listed companies. They look for firms that exhibit characteristics such as strong organic growth, high operating margins, sound ESG practices and sustainable competitive advantages.
Once a company has been identified, an analyst will examine the investment case and complete quality and ESG checklists. If they are confident in the company's potential for long-term ownership in the fund, they present it to the Investment Committee for approval. This typically brings the universe of eligible companies down to 200 names. Beyond this stage a valuation analysis is undertaken to determine the intrinsic value of the business - the team then produce a target price and issue an official recommendation (Strong buy/Buy/Hold) based on their conviction. The outcome of this process is a high-conviction portfolio of between 25-40 best ideas.
Risk
They have a dedicated risk management team that is responsible for monitoring all risk constraints, regulatory portfolio requirements and client restrictions. This team produces a detailed internal quarterly risk report which analyses all investment risks. Due to the size of the companies they invest in, liquidity risk is a key risk that they manage. They apply liquidity screens to all new ideas and continually monitor the liquidity of positions, discussing it at both risk and executive committees.
ESG
ESG - Integrated
ESG was initially incorporated into the firm’s investment process over 15 years ago, and today it is firmly integrated within their approach. ESG is considered an inherent aspect of their definition of a company’s quality. Consequently, a company with a robust ESG profile receives higher scores in their quality checklist, potentially strengthening their conviction in the investment case. Each analyst at Montanaro holds responsibility for conducting ESG and impact analysis on the companies within their coverage. As a result, their investment decision-makers actively engage in sustainability analysis. The fund excludes companies with material revenue exposure to tobacco, alcohol, weapons, adult entertainment, gambling, high-interest rate lending, fossil fuels and animal testing.
The information, data, analyses, and opinions contained herein (1) include the proprietary information of FundCalibre, (2) may not be copied or redistributed without prior permission, (3) do not constitute investment advice offered by FundCalibre, (4) are provided solely for informational purposes and therefore are not an offer to buy or sell a fund, and (5) are not warranted to be correct, complete, or accurate. FundCalibre shall not be responsible for any trading decisions, damages, or other losses resulting from, or related to, this information, data, analyses, or opinions or their use. The Elite Fund rating is subjective in nature and reflects FundCalibre’s current expectations of future events/behaviour as they relate to a particular fund. Because such events/behaviour may turn out to be different than expected, FundCalibre does not guarantee that a fund will perform in line with its FundCalibre benchmark. Likewise, the Elite Fund rating should not be seen as any sort of guarantee or assessment of the creditworthiness of a fund nor of its underlying securities and should not be used as the sole basis for making any investment decision. FundCalibre disclaims any responsibility for trading decisions, damages or other losses resulting from any use of the Elite Fund rating. All performance data, as well as fund size, OCF, AMC, annual income (historic), share price discount or premium, is sourced directly from FE Analytics, and will change periodically.