Why invest in this Fund?

◆    The Fund has a particular focus on ‘quality’ companies defined as:
–    Balance sheet strength
–    Stability of cash flow returns
–    Ability to pay and grow dividends in the future
◆    CHBE is a focused portfolio at the stock level
–    approximately 50 holdings
◆    The Fund is also focused at the sector level with a tendency to overweight Pharmaceutical & Healthcare and Property, and underweight Oil Production & Services.

The objective of the CHBE is to provide income and capital growth over the long term. The focus of the Fund is on larger capitalisation UK companies (minimum 70% in UK equities). This equity exposure is balanced with holdings of up to 30% in other assets, which was originally focussed  on UK fixed interest stock.
We aim for a beta to the FTSE All-Share of around 0.8 and resulting lower volatility for investors, which has been the case: over five years (to end 2020) the Fund’s volatility is 10.7% as opposed to 14.1% for the FTSE All-Share Index.
The steep fall in yields in the fixed interest markets over the past few years has made it increasingly unattractive to utilise these instruments, particularly at longer dates, so we have switched more towards alternative assets, notably in infrastructure and specialist areas of property investment such as social housing.