The third quarter of 2025 ending 30^th September was strong for global markets continuing the positive momentum which began in mid-April, boosted by tariff pull-backs, a de-escalation in trade tensions between the US and China and the passing of the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’. The Global Equity Growth Fund delivered a return of 9.7% (I Class), outperforming peers at 4.3% and the MSCI All world Index at 7.6%. 

The largest contributor to performance was Alibaba Group Holdings as management reassured investors that the Company would be a key beneficiary of the artificial intelligence build-out, and growth momentum in its cloud computing business continued to pick up. The second largest positive contributor to performance was pleasingly a new addition to the Fund in the quarter called Nebius Group which is a neo-cloud provider. Shortly after Nebius Group was bought into the Fund it was announced that the Company had won a large contract with Microsoft which will bring in substantial revenue over the next few years. The deal is also a vote of confidence for Nebuis’s product offering in the AI focused data centre industry.

After being the top contributor in the third quarter, Axon Enterprises was the largest negative performer in the third quarter. We remain very positive on the long-term growth opportunity for Axon as it broadens its range of products, moves into new countries and expands into different customer bases where its products can offer value.  SAP was also a poor performer in the third quarter. The weakness was largely due to concerns that GenAI tools could weaken software companies moats due to fears that GenAI may be able to replicate companies’ proprietary data. However, we believe SAP will gain from GenAI through enhancing their existing services by embedding GenAI in its core cloud and enterprise products, with GenAI helping accelerate the lucrative transition to the cloud.

In the quarter, one new position was initiated. As mentioned above, Nebius Group is a neo-cloud provider offering accelerated computing capacity primarily AI startups, with its eye on growing in the enterprise space. We believe the short supply of leading-edge datacentre capacity makes this a compelling growth opportunity.

Over the period, the Fund exited its position in PayPal and Morgan Stanley. PayPal has been losing market share to innovative fintech start-ups in what is an increasingly competitive payments environment, and its branded checkout is growing at mid-single digits. Morgan Stanley's high valuation along with a growth outlook that is no longer compelling for the Fund, prompted us to exit the position.

Disclaimer: 

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