When it comes to actual stock-picking, Ms Yonge says the company in general takes a value-oriented approach to its stock selection, although this is more value-sensitive rather than a full-on value approach.
“We see value in what we’re all doing, and find growing companies at reasonable prices, but we’re very conscious that value only works if that business is sustainably growing, and it’s going to be around in five or 10 years.
“A lot of businesses have been in the fund for 10 or 15 years.”
Investment approach
The investment approach is about “seeing long-term trends in the market and not necessarily participating when markets are at their most ebullient.
“We invest across equities, bonds, we have index-linked gilts, physically-backed exchange-traded commodities and cash.”
However, because of the central bank activity, where bonds and equities have become more closely correlated, the funds hold a lot of cash, perhaps more than other managers, partly to pick up companies when they are cheap.
The company also has an Ethical Income fund as well as a Global Income and Global Equity fund.
Women in the industry
One of Ms Yonge’s sidelines is helping more young women into the fund management industry through a charitable network called Gain – Girls Are Investors, where she is a co-founder.
Together with a few other senior women, she noticed that the drop-off rate for women making it to the top of the fund management industry was dramatic, and those coming into the industry were still predominantly men.
Ms Yonge and her colleagues thought the obvious thing would be to approach university students, to talk about their careers and how much they enjoyed being fund managers.
“But students have already decided what they want to do and are not a particularly captive audience.
“So we went back to the drawing board and started to get in front of women who were at an earlier stage, at sixth form.”
The main aim of the network is to get in front of these young women and increase the female application rate to fund management.
The initiative has been going for about a year and a half, and has sponsorship from Troy and Alta – a family investment office.
“Many young women did not understand what investment was and how it directly affects the economy, and how it was different from investment banking.”
The charity is still in its early stages, but has developed a network of ambassadors who can act as role models and sources of information.
For Ms Yonge, this will only see more women come into a sector that is also hoping to have an impact on companies’ carbon footprint.
Melanie Tringham is features editor at Financial Adviser and FTAdviser
