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Artisan Global Discovery Strategy reaches 3-year anniversary

Updated: Aug 27, 2021


Portfolio Managers L-R: James Hamel, Craigh Cepukenas, Matthew Kamm, Jason White (Lead)


The Artisan Global Discovery Fund is an Australian domiciled unit trust distributed by Copia that invests exclusively in the Artisan Global Discovery UCITS Fund (Fund). The Fund implements the global small and mid-cap Artisan Global Discovery Strategy (Strategy). Structured to capitalize on the Artisan Partners Growth Team’s 20-plus years’ experience of growth investing, the Artisan Global Discovery Strategy celebrates its three-year anniversary. The Strategy’s highly flexible portfolio of companies represents some of the team’s best ideas across the global economy and is a natural extension of the team’s long-held belief that mid-cap companies represent an investing sweet spot.


Outperformance in up and down markets driven by stock selection


The Growth team’s bottom-up oriented investment process has been a key ingredient in the Strategy’s outperformance.


A process that dates back to 1997


The strategy employs the same philosophy and process the team has used to guide its investment decision making since the Artisan U.S. Mid-Cap Growth Strategy’s inception in 1997. The team fundamentally believes stocks follow profits and identifying high-quality franchises on the cusp of a compelling profit cycle, based on catalysts the team can understand, selling at a discount to the team’s estimate of private market value is a highly effective way to compound assets over the long term.


Investment results

*(%, returns greater than one year are per annum). The performance has been calculated from the inception of the Artisan Global Discovery Strategy on September 1, 2017 and adjusted for the fee structure of the Artisan Global Discovery Fund.

The Artisan Global Discovery Fund invests exclusively in the Artisan Global Discovery UCITS Fund (Fund) which is a sub-fund of Artisan Partners Global Funds plc. The investment manager of the Fund is Artisan Partners Limited Partnership


Picking stocks on the premise of profit growth has historically been an effective strategy


Data indicates profit growth has been the predominant reason for value, or cyclical, stocks’ outperformance in the 2000s and the rotation into growth stocks in the post-global financial crisis decade. This analysis was featured in a recent article by the Artisan Partners Growth Team titled “The Importance of Profit Growth in Equity Returns”.


Opportunistically targeting investments in global mid-cap franchises


The Strategy tends to be more focused on mid-cap franchises at the time of its initial investments. The team has found midcap stocks represent a compelling intersection of quality and growth—mature enough to be high-quality franchises with solid competitive advantages, financially sound with the capacity to generate cash flow to fund future growth, a tendency to be a purer profit cycle play given a tighter business focus and in possession of experienced, savvy management teams.


Unconstrained market cap and geographic mandates


While mid-cap stocks tend to possess the characteristics the team seeks, these features can be found up and down the market-cap spectrum. Absent an upper limit on the Strategy’s market-cap mandate, the team can stick with its global investment campaigns through their profit cycles.


Dividend, EPS growth and multiple expansion/contraction contribution to total return



The Strategy’s highly flexible portfolio of companies represents some of the team’s best ideas across the global economy and is a natural extension of the team’s long-held belief that mid-cap companies represent an investing sweet spot.



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