Keys to the success of the Baillie Gifford Overseas Growth Funds ICVC – Pacific Fund

The Baillie Gifford Overseas Growth Funds ICVC - Pacific Fund is based in the UK. Its investment focus is primarily on equities of companies located in the major markets of the Asia Pacific region, as specified in the prospectus.

The fund's objective is to provide investors with diversified exposure to Asia Pacific markets by selecting assets with high growth potential in this region.

The fund's management team is composed of experienced professionals in the region with a long-term investment focus and are dedicated to asset selection. Their objective is to identify and take advantage of attractive investment opportunities in companies with high growth potential in the region in order to maximize the growth potential of the assets in the fund's portfolio.

At the end of March 2023, this investment strategy had assets under management of over £2.4 trillion and its benchmark is the MSCI AC Asia ex Japan Index.

Performance of Baillie Gifford Overseas Growth Funds ICVC - Pacific Fund

Source: Factsheet of the fund Baillie Gifford Overseas Growth Funds ICVC - Pacific Fund, a 31-03-2023.

In the table on the left-hand side, it can be seen that when looking at the 3 and 5-year returns, which are measures that institutional investors typically look at to assess the consistency of a fund, this fund offers additional performance (alpha) by outperforming its benchmark.

In the annual section of the table on the right-hand side, it can be seen that the Baillie Gifford Overseas Growth Funds ICVC - Pacific Fund outperforms its benchmark in 3 of the 5 perspectives analyzed.

Source: Financial Times, a 31-03-2023.

When analyzing the risk indicators in the table above (the fund manager is encouraged to include the Beta, Alpha, and Information Ratio indicators in the fund report if possible), it is noted that the 3-year alpha is positive and significant. This indicates that the fund generates added value over the beta of the benchmark market.

Another relevant aspect is that the Information Ratio, which measures alpha in relation to tracking error, is positive. This means that the management team is getting it right by taking positions that do not strictly follow the benchmark but seek to generate added value.

The market beta is above 1, suggesting that the fund has a higher systematic risk than the benchmark.

Other indicators for Baillie Gifford Overseas Growth Funds ICVC - Pacific Fund

It is important to take country allocation into account in the fund's analysis, although it is not a determining factor, as investment performance in each country is influenced by the bottom-up decisions of company selection, which is where the management team adds value.

The good and the not so good

The Baillie Gifford Overseas Growth Funds ICVC - Pacific Fund has a management team with extensive experience in the region, which seeks to invest for the long term and on an institutional basis, resulting in consistency of investment performance and an opportunity for diversification in the emerging Asian market.