This Morningstar Award Winner Bought GRANOLAS Before They Were Cool

James Hanford of Comgest says his European ex-UK equity fund was spooning GRANOLAS stocks into its portfolio before hype around the concept had arrived

Ollie Smith 8 March, 2024 | 11:16AM
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Ollie Smith: Picking up the coveted Morningstar Award for Best European ex-UK Equity Fund is James Hanford of Comgest. James, congratulations.

I realise this is slightly outside the purview of a European ex-UK equity fund, but what do you think of the concept of the GRANOLAS at the moment?

James Hanford: I think it's an interesting one. I think we definitely like these groups of companies, whether it's Magnificent Seven or the GRANOLAS in Europe. We have some of them. Novo Nordisk and ASML are very important companies for us. They're large weights in our portfolio. And that's really because we believe that those companies can grow in the double-digit sustainably in the long-term. We tend to avoid paying too much attention to those categories. I think there's a reason why they exist. The companies in the Magnificent Seven and the GRANOLAS are good companies with strong growth prospects, but we just remain focused on what we've done for the last 40 years. We already had some of those companies in the portfolio before that term was coined, and that continues to be the strategy.

OS: So, you knew them before they were famous?

JH: We owned them before, yes. The answer is yes.

OS: Excellent. Congratulations and have a wonderful rest of the evening. Thank you very much.

JH: Thank you.

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Ollie Smith

Ollie Smith  is editor of Morningstar UK

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