Single country and regional equities strategies

Fund manager: Tom Dobell

This strategy is the original recovery strategy that has been successfully investing in out-of-favour companies, with the potential to restore themselves to health, since its launch in 1969. A robust and consistent approach that has proved successful for over 47 years.

• This simple, repeatable common sense approach has a proven track record of generating substantial index-beating returns for our investors over the long term.
• M&G’s extensive experience in recovery investing is unique, successfully identifying the strategic value in companies shunned by the market.
• A clearly differentiated proposition, offering customers a strategy that is both genuinely long term and distinctly contrarian.
• Our highly active approach to company engagement is much enhanced by our unrivalled network of corporate contacts, providing a key advantage.

Fund manager: Garfield Kiff

This strategy follows an actively managed, high conviction approach, investing in the bottom 10%, by market value, of the listed UK equity market. Company meetings and detailed financial analysis form the bedrock of the strategy’s bottom-up stock-picking approach.

• An investment process focused on the long term.
• We believe that the strength of a company’s business model together with effective management are the key to creating returns for shareholders.
• We are looking for companies with sustainable competitive advantage or undergoing positive change to achieve this.
• Management interaction is a core part of the process – we regularly meet all current or potential investments.
• We actively look to exploit features of the Small Cap market – such as short-termism, illiquidity and regular corporate actions – that create mis-pricing opportunities.
• We maintain a disciplined approach to valuation.

Fund manager: Sam Ford

This strategy follows an unconstrained approach in UK equities with the aim of outperforming the FTSE All-Share Index over the long term. It applies a ‘growth and income’ approach without a yield constraint and focuses on companies with a sustainable competitive advantage that can re-invest their capital at high rates of return. Capital discipline is central to the stock selection process. As a result, it is essential that companies being considered for investment recognise the importance of dividends to ensure capital discipline within businesses.

The team seeks to invest in companies with potential for long-term dividend growth. This approach is based on the fundamental belief that companies generating rising dividends, bought at sensible valuations, will deliver excellent total returns over time through the combination of income growth and capital growth. Dividends and share prices go hand in hand.

The strategy is designed to benefit from the following:

• The tailwind of dividend investing.
• A bottom-up approach focused on fundamental analysis and valuation.
• A disciplined process which selects stocks from three distinct categories of dividend growth: ‘quality’ (defensives), ‘assets’ (cyclicals) and ‘rapid growth’ (growth).

The process provides flexibility and allows the fund manager to invest outside the defensive stocks most commonly associated with dividend strategies. The outcome is a balanced portfolio which is designed to cope with a variety of market conditions. The fund manager believes the strategy is best reflected in a concentrated portfolio of best ideas. The strategy will usually hold 30 to 40 stocks backed by conviction and a long-term time horizon of three to five years.

Fund manager: Phil Cliff

This strategy follows an unconstrained approach in UK equities with the aim of outperforming the FTSE All-Share Index over the long term. The strategy also has an income objective of providing a rising income stream and a yield premium.

The team seeks to invest in companies with potential for long-term dividend growth. This approach is based on the fundamental belief that companies generating rising dividends, bought at sensible valuations, will deliver excellent total returns over time through the combination of income growth and capital growth. Dividends and share prices go hand in hand.

The strategy is designed to benefit from the following:

• The tailwind of dividend investing.
• A bottom-up approach focused on fundamental analysis and valuation.
• A disciplined process which selects stocks from three distinct categories of dividend growth: ‘quality’ (defensives), ‘assets’ (cyclicals) and ‘rapid growth’ (growth).

The process provides flexibility and allows the fund manager to invest outside the defensive stocks most commonly associated with dividend strategies. The outcome is a balanced portfolio which is designed to cope with a variety of market conditions. The fund manager believes the strategy is best reflected in a concentrated portfolio of best ideas. The strategy will usually hold 30 to 50 stocks backed by conviction and a long-term time horizon of three years or more. Investors seeking income can receive distributions paid half-yearly.

Fund manager: John William Olsen

This strategy invests in a concentrated portfolio of quality companies, with ‘economic moats’ which aim to protect their profitability and an element of change helping to drive their value.

• A concentrated yet balanced portfolio of quality, European (including UK) companies, with environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors integrated in the manager’s assessment of businesses.
• A long-term, low-turnover strategy where patience is key, taking advantage of short-term share price weakness to invest in quality companies at attractive valuations.
• A dynamic investment framework, designed to help the fund cope in different market conditions, with a particular focus on risk.

Fund manager: Michael Oliveros

This strategy invests in a concentrated portfolio of smaller quality companies from across Europe (inc UK), with 'economic moats' which aim to protect their profitability and an element of change helping to drive their value.

• A concentrated yet balanced portfolio of quality, smaller European companies, which seeks to add value through active engagement with management.
• A long-term, low-turnover strategy where patience is key, taking advantage of short-term share price weakness to invest in quality companies at attractive valuations.
• A dynamic investment framework, designed to help the strategy cope in different market conditions, with a particular focus on risk.

Fund manager: Richard Halle

‘Value’ investing, namely buying cheap, out-of-favour stocks, is a proven strategy that has tended to outperform the stock market over the long term. This strategy seeks to capture the value tailwind by investing in European company shares that look mispriced, whilst attempting to mitigate the shortfalls typically associated with value investing, namely volatility and stocks that are cheap for a reason, so-called ‘value traps’.

• The strategy aims to exploit the mean-reverting behaviour of stock prices, that is, shares that are too cheap eventually drift back towards a more ‘normal’ valuation that reflects the underlying reality of the business.
• The strategy’s differentiated approach combines strict valuation-focused screening with rigorous fundamental analysis to ensure the portfolio maintains a strong and consistent value bias without compromising on the fundamentals of the companies.
• The manager aims to construct a well-diversified portfolio of 60-100 stocks, where the predominant driver of returns is the value style and overall stock selection, rather than conviction in an individual stock or sector.

Fund manager: Phil Cliff

This strategy follows an unconstrained approach in European equities with the aim of outperforming the MSCI Europe Index over the long term. The strategy also has an income objective of providing a rising income stream and a yield premium.

The team seeks to invest in companies with potential for long-term dividend growth. This approach is based on the fundamental belief that companies generating rising dividends, bought at sensible valuations, will deliver excellent total returns over time through the combination of income growth and capital growth. Dividends and share prices go hand in hand.

The strategy is designed to benefit from the following:

• The tailwind of dividend investing.
• A bottom-up approach focused on fundamental analysis and valuation.
• A disciplined process which selects stocks from three distinct categories of dividend growth: ‘quality’ (defensives), ‘assets’ (cyclicals) and ‘rapid growth’ (growth).

The process provides flexibility and allows the fund Manager to invest outside the defensive stocks most commonly associated with dividend strategies. The outcome is a balanced portfolio which is designed to cope with a variety of market conditions. The fund manager believes the strategy is best reflected in a concentrated portfolio of best ideas. The strategy will usually hold 30 to 40 stocks backed by conviction and a long-term time horizon of three years or more. Investors seeking income can receive distributions paid half-yearly.

Fund manager: John Weavers

This strategy follows an unconstrained approach in North American equities with the aim of outperforming the S&P 500 Index over the long term. The strategy also has an income objective of providing a rising income stream.

The team seeks to invest in companies with potential for long-term dividend growth. This approach is based on the fundamental belief that companies generating rising dividends, bought at sensible valuations, will deliver excellent total returns over time through the combination of income growth and capital growth. Dividends and share prices go hand in hand.

The strategy is designed to benefit from the following:

• The tailwind of dividend investing.
• A bottom-up approach focused on fundamental analysis and valuation.
• A disciplined process which selects stocks from three distinct categories of dividend growth: ‘quality’ (defensives), ‘assets’ (cyclicals) and ‘rapid growth’ (growth)

The process provides flexibility and allows the fund manager to invest outside the defensive stocks most commonly associated with dividend strategies. The outcome is a balanced portfolio which is designed to cope with a variety of market conditions. The strategy will usually hold 40 to 50 stocks backed by conviction and a long-term time horizon of three to five years. Investors seeking income can receive distributions paid quarterly.

Fund manager: Daniel White

‘Value’ investing, namely buying cheap, out-of-favour stocks, is a proven strategy that has tended to outperform the stock market over the long term. This strategy seeks to capture the value tailwind by investing in US company shares that look mispriced, whilst attempting to mitigate the shortfalls typically associated with value investing, namely volatility and stocks that are cheap for a reason, so-called ‘value traps’.

• The strategy aims to exploit the mean-reverting behaviour of stock prices, that is, shares that are too cheap eventually drift back towards a more ‘normal’ valuation that reflects the underlying reality of the business.
• The strategy’s differentiated approach combines strict valuation-focused screening with rigorous fundamental analysis to ensure the portfolio maintains a strong and consistent value bias without compromising on the fundamentals of the companies.
• The manager aims to construct a well-diversified portfolio of 60-100 stocks, where the predominant driver of returns is the value style and overall stock selection, rather than conviction in an individual stock or sector.