Stock Stories brings you closer to the heart of our investment strategy. In these short, videos, Co-lead portfolio manager Julian Bishop discusses some of Brunner’s portfolio holdings and how they contribute to our overall strategic objectives of delivering growing dividends and capital growth for our shareholders by investing in a diversified set of high-quality companies from around the world.
In this short episode of ‘Stock Stories’, Julian discusses an investment decision that was made and is illustrative of the Trust’s strategy: Microsoft.
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My name is Julian Bishop and I'm co-lead portfolio manager of the Brunner Investment Trust. It's important to remember that all investments come with risk. We aim to provide an all-weather portfolio that seeks to create wealth across market cycles. And to do this, we seek a balance between investment attributes such as quality, value and growth. Predominantly, though, we invest in high quality companies at a fair price and hold them for the long term.
A good example of our investment philosophy is Microsoft. It's hard to remember a time before the PC, and almost it's hard to recall a time before Microsoft dominated software. Unlike more speculative technology startups, Microsoft is already a very, very large, diverse and financially strong business, and people in companies around the world have come to depend on its software. At the start of 2024, there were more than 400 million subscribers to Office 365 it's well known a suite of applications that includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Teams. As a digital business, each new customer has very low additional costs, which is profoundly important for the company's profitability.
Over the decades, its success has been built on its ability to create, adapt, and envision the technologies of the future - from cloud computing to artificial intelligence. For people, companies and economies, AI is a game changer. Bloomberg Intelligence expects generative AI to become a $1.3 trillion market by 2032, and by providing cloud storage and services for new AI companies and adding Copilot AI functionality to its existing suite of products. Microsoft has established itself as one of the leaders in AI, further bolstering its relationships with businesses around the world.
Microsoft's market value crossed the $3 trillion mark for the first time in 2024. It's been a standout investment for The Brunner Investment Trust. Over the years, it has been one of the largest holdings in the portfolio, and it has consistently grown its dividends over the past decade and helped us to grow ours too, something Brunner has done for more than 50 years.
With its durable business model, robust cash generation and reasonable valuation, Microsoft is exactly the kind of company we like at Brunner. Well, this is not a recommendation and there are never any guarantees in investment, its resilience in the face of economic uncertainty makes it a perfect fit for our all-weather portfolio.
Disclaimers: Past performance does not predict future returns. Securities mentioned in this document are for illustrative purposes only and do not constitute a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any particular security. These securities will not necessarily be comprised in the portfolio by the time this document is disclosed or at any other subsequent date.
The statements contained herein may include statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements that are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statement.