Hi Jack. I kind of stumbled across it, if memory serves, on the Link Fund Solutions website: https://www.linkfundsolutions.co.uk/541.cshtml

If you scroll down to the ‘Select Fund Group’ drop-down menu you should see it listed under ‘LF Blue Whale’

Shopify has been an amazing story – just over $40 as recently as the end of 2016 and I think it touched $1,000 earlier today. But that makes the valuation $120bn versus forecast sales of $2.2bn for 2020!

Although I’m still kicking myself about not buying some dedicated biotech and tech over the last year or two, I share that fear of jumping in at a bad moment.

I think 5 BG funds and 4 BG trusts have returned more than 30% this year – that’s out of a total of 34 equity funds and trusts.

But some question marks remain. I’m not crazy about the turnover – it’s hard to see evidence that they’re any good at it. It’s laudable to want to be #1, but I’d prefer it to be backed up with a more set-in-stone investment philosophy.

Finally, arguably the obvious benchmark is the NASDAQ 100, and it has failed to beat this. Perhaps this is because NASDAQ is in a colossal bubble!

On the other hand, the portfolio is full of very high quality companies – I like the fact that many of the holdings are shared with Findlay Park, who are one of my benchmarks for US quality.

While the ‘Baillie Gifford style’ has shot the lights out this year, I’m still a little sceptical of the valuations. I’m sure there are one or two future Amazons in there, but I suspect there are more Pets.com. And a good business (as it’s becoming clearer that companies like Shopify are going forward) is not necessarily a good investment. Or to put it another way, I’m not convinced of the sustainability of the earnings and share price gains.

In addition, my experience has been that joint ventures like Blue Whale tend to not work – it’s good that Yiu has a stake, but it’s still not really ‘his’. Hargreave is in charge, and I note that Hargreave’s son is in charge of the PR/Marketing, which could be a positive or a negative depending on further facts.

If I’m honest, I think overall I consider Blue Whale as an ETF proxy – it’s quite useful to provide exposure to quality large-cap US tech, in the absence of a great fund where one really has total faith in the alignment and fiduciary duty of the managers. I suppose I still view Manchester & London similarly, though with added liquidity issues.

Thanks Ray.

I think the concern with open-ended funds is mostly limited to those with illiquid holdings – such as the large unquoted stakes that Woodford held, commercial property, or where a fund owns a large percentage of an individual company’s shares (although that can be an issue for investment trusts as well). However, with the size of companies that Blue Whale is investing in, selling any of its positions should be very easy.

It’s a sign of their ambition that they already have an investment team of five to run a relatively small fund. They obviously envisage it growing into a multi-billion pound vehicle.

I suspect Caledonia and Tetragon are probably the closest.

It might be worth looking through the Flexible sector to see what catches your eye, though. I did a quick overview piece here: https://www.itinvestor.co.uk/2019/11/flexible-friends/ but I think you’d probably need to look at their latest monthly/quarterly factsheets for a better feel.

I’ve never really looked at the AIC’s hedge fund sector, but the BH Macro & Global funds and Pershing Square seem to have their fans.