Philosophy and values

We don’t speculate on short-term shifts in financial markets or try to out-guess macroeconomic forecasters. Instead, our investment teams engage in deep, bottom-up analysis of companies. We try to find those that are disrupting existing ways of doing things. And we look for those with a deep-seated competitive advantage so they aren’t dependent on external factors they can’t control. Whether investing for capital growth or a sustainable income, we determine our success by understanding individual companies and how they can execute on their opportunities.

We actively engage with the companies in our portfolios. We try to build constructive relationships with management and so contribute to good outcomes rather than just speculate on share prices at arm’s length. Although we seek to be long-term supportive shareholders, if we think the opportunity is waning or management is not behaving as we would like despite our efforts, we do not hesitate to sell and move on.

Our investment teams have much in common but don’t always agree with each other. Nor are they under pressure to do so. Baillie Gifford doesn’t have a ‘house view’ about what to buy or sell. While our managers draw on each other’s research, they reach their own conclusions about individual companies’ prospects and how to construct their portfolios.

The investment management industry has considerable influence because of the assets we allocate. We don’t treat that lightly. As a business, our primary goal is to generate investment returns for our clients, but we must not be irresponsible in how we do it. We seek to set an example by:

• charging fair, reasonable and transparent fees
• acting as responsible owners of companies on clients’ behalf
• focusing on how our deployment of capital can create useful economic growth that benefits everyone

We believe this approach is consistent with generating excellent long-term outcomes for our clients.