Carmignac Portfolio Human Xperience: Letter from the Fund Manager
![[Management Team] [Author] Ejikeme Obe](https://carmignac.imgix.net/uploads/NextImage/0001/18/%5BManagement-Team%5D-Ejikeme-Obe.png?auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=fill&w=3840)
Over the fourth quarter, Carmignac Portfolio Human Xperience F EUR Acc recorded a performance of +5.51%, underperforming the MSCI All Country World, which posted a gain of +6.71%. For the year 2024, the fund achieved a performance of +18.40%, compared to a rise of +25.33% for its reference indicator.
Market environment during the period
The year 2024 witnessed a remarkable performance in equity markets, particularly in the United States (U.S)- where stock markets experienced robust growth, with major indices reaching unprecedented heights. This exceptional performance was driven by three key factors: strong corporate profits, easing monetary policy, and significant enthusiasm surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in the first half of the year. The latter half of 2024 saw market gains further bolstered by the prospects, and reaction to, a second Trump presidency. The AI boom led to a concentration of market gains in a handful of mega-cap tech companies, especially in the first semester. Later, a broadening of performance drivers was observed, with cyclical and unprofitable growth companies benefiting from the anticipation of a Trump 2.0 administration. However, the equity market landscape was not uniform globally. European equities notably underperformed compared to their U.S. counterparts, hampered by political instability, economic weakness, limited exposure to the AI sector and the attendant risk of tariff rises.
How did we fare in this context?
The first half of the year saw our fund supported by our exposure and stock selection in Healthcare and Communication Services. Novo Nordisk and Alphabet were among our strongest stock contributors over the first two quarters. We also benefitted from contributors in names like Nvidia in the Tech sector and Costco in the Consumer space that fared well over the first half of the year. Our largest detractors over this period were mostly in the Consumer sectors, with names like Estee Lauder, LVMH, Diageo as well as VIP Shop in China limiting our overall performance. The consumer sectors were weak over the first half of the year driven by weakening economic growth and in particular consumer spending. The luxury goods sector in particular suffered over these months.
As the U.S. election approached, and despite initial rate cuts from the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, our quality companies underperformed the markets, and we saw a reversal towards cyclical stocks. This was the main reason for our underperformance in the second half of the year. As we did not have much exposure to these cyclical sectors, our underweight to Financials and overweight Tech and consumer sectors were detrimental to us, especially in the third quarter. We ended the year with a fourth quarter recovering part of what we lost in the third quarter thanks to our contributors in tech related names like Amazon, Alphabet, Cisco, ServiceNow and our latest addition to the portfolio Apple. Both Mastercard and Visa in the consumer finance space also contributed positively towards the end of the year. Having exited Novo Nordisk earlier in the year, this also limited our underperformance over the second half of the year as results from their new GLP-1 Drug for diabetes and obesity, Cagrisema, fell short of market expectations.
Outlook & positioning
The Carmignac Human Xperience fund aims to achieve long-term capital growth by investing in companies that prioritize human capital and stakeholder engagement. The fund focuses on businesses that demonstrate strong practices in areas such as employee well-being, customer satisfaction, and community involvement. By investing in companies that excel in these areas, the fund seeks to generate sustainable financial returns while also promoting positive social impact. The strategy is based on the belief that companies with strong human-centric practices are better positioned for long-term success and resilience.
Although we have added to more cyclical names like Siemens and UBS over the year, we remain focused on more defensive sectors and stocks. Regarding our position on consumer stocks, our reasoning is based on persistently low unemployment despite higher interest rates, which indicates solid support for consumer spending. Increased consumer spending can drive demand for both Consumer Discretionary and Staples especially if interest rates continue to fall. Idiosyncratic stories in Staples continue to be the way we intend to play the sector.
Our second largest sector exposure is in mega tech and software. We remain convinced that this exposure will benefit going forward as there are signs that investments / CAPEX already benefit the core businesses. For example, Alphabet with their Gen-AI powered searches are proving additive to their search query volumes. Also, Microsoft has the potential to benefit through their Azure acceleration. On a separate note, ServiceNow being more economically sensitive looks set to benefit from an improved macro environment.
Over the year we initiated positions in new consumer staple stocks such as Nestle, which had a strong CHX score thanks to its positive client experience. In the second quarter, we replaced Intel by TSMC, which we think offers better quality, leaving us more convinced, and initiated a position in SAP in the software space. During the second quarter we also closed our positions in General Mills and Sodexho which had deteriorating CHX scores. Towards the end of the Third Quarter and Fourth quarter, we increased our Tech names by adding Apple and Oracle, as well as Beiersdorf in the consumer space while we exited Edenred and Novo Nordisk due to deteriorating CHX scores.
From a regional perspective, the portfolio has a significantly higher exposure to Europe (24%) compared to the benchmark (13%), which we believe will benefit performance in 2025 as the extreme US vs. Europe performance unwinds.
Carmignac Portfolio Human Xperience
A thematic Fund focused on customer and employee experienceDiscover the fund pageCarmignac Portfolio Human Xperience F EUR Acc
- Recommended minimum investment horizon
- 5 years
- Risk indicator*
- 4/7
- SFDR - Fund Classification**
- Article 9
*Risk Scale from the KID (Key Information Document). Risk 1 does not mean a risk-free investment. This indicator may change over time. **The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) 2019/2088 is a European regulation that requires asset managers to classify their funds as either 'Article 8' funds, which promote environmental and social characteristics, 'Article 9' funds, which make sustainable investments with measurable objectives, or 'Article 6' funds, which do not necessarily have a sustainability objective. For more information please refer to https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2019/2088/oj.
Main risks of the fund
Fees
- Entry costs
- We do not charge an entry fee.
- Exit costs
- We do not charge an exit fee for this product.
- Management fees and other administrative or operating costs
- 1,15% of the value of your investment per year. This estimate is based on actual costs over the past year.
- Performance fees
- 20,00% when the share class overperforms the Reference indicator during the performance period. It will be payable also in case the share class has overperformed the reference indicator but had a negative performance. Underperformance is clawed back for 5 years. The actual amount will vary depending on how well your investment performs. The aggregated cost estimation above includes the average over the last 5 years, or since the product creation if it is less than 5 years.
- Transaction Cost
- 0,35% of the value of your investment per year. This is an estimate of the costs incurred when we buy and sell the investments underlying the product. The actual amount varies depending on the quantity we buy and sell.
Performance
| Carmignac Portfolio Human Xperience | 19.8 | -21.3 | 23.4 | 18.4 |
| Reference Indicator | 17.2 | -13.0 | 18.1 | 25.3 |
| Carmignac Portfolio Human Xperience | + 17.9 % | + 8.5 % | + 9.4 % |
| Reference Indicator | + 26.1 % | + 11.2 % | + 12.1 % |
Source: Carmignac at 31 Jan 2025.
Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance. Performances are net of fees (excluding possible entrance fees charged by the distributor).
Reference Indicator: MSCI AC World NR index
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