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European (ex UK) All Cap
Investing in 30-45 companies in Europe (excluding the UK), the strategy was launched in January 2022.
Download overviewWe invest in companies that we consider to be the very best sustainability companies in Europe. These businesses have strong and competitive franchises, exceptional people and distinctive cultures, and resilient financials. Individually and collectively they are solving difficult problems, meeting critical needs, and helping bring about a more sustainable future.
By focusing on the highest quality and best sustainability companies in Europe, we believe we can offer an exciting portfolio that stands out from the crowd.
For European investors this strategy is available in our VCC but due to regional differences includes UK companies.
Why invest in European companies?
World-leading sustainability companies
- Europe has a large listed universe, including world-leading health care, clean energy, manufacturing and IT companies
- Many of these companies have large and growing end-markets, including in many emerging economies, and a strong presence globally and locally
Exceptional people and cultures
- Many companies are run by outstanding management teams and are often controlled by long-term stewards – foundations, families and entrepreneurs
- Europe has a high concentration of companies with strong cultures, great franchises, and healthy balance sheets and financial characteristics
Sustainability tailwinds
- Social norms, policies and regulations are often favourable for companies advancing sustainable technologies and solutions
- European companies are known and respected for setting high standards
Strategy highlights: a focus on quality and sustainability
- Companies must contribute to sustainable development. Portfolio Explorer >
- We invest in high-quality companies with exceptional cultures, strong franchises and resilient financials. How we pick companies >
- We avoid companies linked to harmful activities and engage and vote for positive change. Our position on harmful products >
- Our approach is long-term, bottom-up, high conviction and benchmark agnostic
- We focus on capital preservation as well as capital growth – we define risk as the permanent loss of client capital
Latest insights
Quarterly updates
Strategy update: Q4 2024
European (ex UK) All Cap strategy update: 1 October - 31 December 2024
2024 will be remembered as another year of geopolitical turbulence and pronounced market fluctuations. European economies and stock markets continued to be impacted by the war in Ukraine, a slowdown in China, rising political polarisation, and sluggish economic growth in almost every major European economy apart from Spain and Poland, despite softer inflation.
The strategy’s performance over the year was bifurcated. Strong contributions from many industrial and technology holdings, such as Nexans (France: Industrials), Addtech (Sweden: Industrials) and Wolters Kluwer (Netherlands: Industrials), were undermined by a number of healthcare holdings, including Tecan (Switzerland: Health Care), Sartorius (Germany: Health Care) and Carl Zeiss Meditec (Germany: Health Care).
Many healthcare companies continued to struggle with post covid de-stocking, declining demand from China, and a lack of investment due to stretched public purses. Moving into 2025, we are seeing signs of an end to de-stocking cycles among both healthcare and other industrial companies.
Over the year, we took the opportunity to trim some holdings whose valuations became excessive, including Indutrade (Sweden: Industrials), Nemetschek (Germany: Information Technology) and Ringkjøbing Landbobank (Denmark: Financials). In turn, we built-up positions in companies we believe are attractively valued. This included Endava (United States: Information Technology), a developer of bespoke software solutions that operates mainly out of eastern Europe, Allegro (Poland: Consumer Discretionary), the largest e-commerce operator in Poland, and Dino Polska (Poland: Consumer Staples), a discount grocer.
We also continued to build positions in two exceptional software companies, Wolters Kluwer (Netherlands: Industrials) and Vitec Software (Sweden: Information Technology) which offer strong growth potential and consistent, recurring cash flows.