Janus Henderson Glb Tech&Inno H2 USD |
by Stephen Welch
While there have been personnel woes, Janus Henderson Global Technology and Innovation benefits from a well-defined but flexible approach. Personnel departures continue, but the team remains adequately resourced with sufficient expertise. Since lead manager Denny Fish’s early 2016 start on this strategy, three comanagers, five analysts, and one associate analyst have departed, with four leaving this year. While turnover isn’t ideal, Fish hired three experienced analysts and one associate analyst to fill out the team during that span. In March 2022, he promoted assistant manager Jon Cofsky to a comanager to help with risk management. With the most recent departures, he is looking to hire one more member to build out coverage on internet companies like Alphabet. The strategy still benefits from Fish’s expertise and a well-defined, consistent approach. The team uses a fundamental, bottom-up process to construct a portfolio whose growth prospects are in line with their risks. Specifically, it looks for firms in two groups: those that are resilient with mature platforms and network effects, such as longtime semiconductor holding ASML, and those that have more potential growth opportunities but also more risk. Fish keeps position sizes in the latter smaller to account for the higher risk. Fish got off to a solid start, but performance took a hit during the market correction in 2022. Yet, as growth stocks rebounded in the first eight months of 2023, the strategy recovered and landed just outside the top quartile in the technology Morningstar Category. The team picked up hard-hit names such as media firm Meta Platforms META and avoided more challenged semiconductor firms such as Intel INTC and Qualcomm QCOM. From Fish’s January 2016 start through August 2023, the U.S.-based D shares’ 20.3% annualized return outpaced the technology category norm by 4.6 percentage points but slightly lagged the MSCI ACWI/Information Technology Index’s 20.5%. Investors should look beyond recent woes, as the strategy’s balanced approach should help it maintain an edge for the right price. |
Morningstar Pillars | |
People | Average |
Parent | Average |
Process | Above Average |
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