Equities

Our approach to equity investments

Objectivity, consistency and first-hand research are at the heart of our equity process. It’s an approach that’s been tried and tested since the early 1990s.

Key aspects of our process

• A team approach, with asset managers based in the regions where we invest
• Focus on long-term investments
• Emphasis on the fundamentals of the companies we invest in
• First-hand research from regional teams
• No investment without interviewing the company’s management first
• Risk control with diversification at the stock level

The Aberdeen equity investment process

The Aberdeen equity investment process

Intelligent choices

Choosing good stock is the key to our performance. We identify good-quality securities with strong management and business models, which are attractively priced.

Benchmarks are not a big influence on our portfolio construction since they don’t really indicate future performance.

Our asset managers avoid businesses we do not understand and those that have discriminatory shareholder structures.

Original research

Our mainstream equity managers always visit companies before investing, making thousands of visits every year to existing and prospective holdings.

Every contact is documented in detail. If a security fails our screens, we will not own it, no matter what its index weight.

We control risk by investing in diverse stock, and we add value by capitalising on our original research. Risk, for us, is as much about overpaying for a good company as investing in a bad one.

Long-term focus

Our mainstream strategies are simple: we buy and hold, add on the dips and take profits on price rises. This reduces transaction costs and keeps our portfolios focused.

We don’t often pursue short-term returns for mainstream equity strategies, although for specialist portfolios we may take a more dynamic approach if required.

Team approach

We employ around 110 equity investment professionals all over the world. We work as a team on everything, from company visits and analysis to deciding how we’ll construct portfolios. We don’t cultivate ‘star’ managers – rather, we stay objective with teams covering securities on a local level.