View transcript
<p><strong>Your capital is at risk. Past performance is not a guide to future returns. The following update is based on a representative portfolio. As such, stock examples may not be held in every client portfolio, and performance may differ.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Paul Taylor</strong>: Markets do not like uncertainty. They rarely wait patiently. They simplify, they extrapolate, and they move quickly towards whatever feels most certain in the moment. That, in many ways, was the story of the last quarter.</p>
<p>Conflict in the Gulf unsettled markets and renewed concerns about oil and inflation. But for the International Concentrated Growth Strategy, the bigger driver of recent performance was uncertainty around artificial intelligence. Not whether it matters, it clearly does, but which businesses it will strengthen, which it will weaken, and where the value will end up.</p>
<p>And markets dislike uncertainty so much. They did what they very often do. They rush to impose order on a situation that is far from orderly.</p>
<p>By the end of February, parts of the market were beginning to behave as though the outlines of AI's economic future were already becoming clear. There was already more confidence about who would benefit and who would lose out than we think the facts currently justify.</p>
<p>Several holdings, including Adyen and Spotify, were marked down during the quarter despite reporting solid results and positive outlooks. Obviously, what the market is trying to judge is not the next quarter, maybe the next year, but what we need to focus on is what these businesses will be worth over time.</p>
<p>This did not come entirely out of nowhere. We had already started to see some of the pressures emerge late last year, especially across software and related businesses. What changed more recently was the speed and intensity of that reassessment.</p>
<p>On the other side of the ledger, our digital infrastructure holdings performed very strongly. TSMC and ASML remain central to the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem. If the world wants more computing power and more advanced chips, it will continue to need businesses like these.</p>
<p>That strength helped offset some of the weakness elsewhere in the portfolio, but overall performance for the quarter was negative in absolute terms and behind the benchmark.</p>
<p>What matters now is not whether AI will matter. It will. The harder question is where its benefits will actually accrue.</p>
<p>Some businesses will face a tougher competitive environment, but others will emerge stronger. Core systems that businesses rely on, workflow tools that are deeply embedded, and infrastructure where trust and reliability matter most may prove resilient, the current market assumes.</p>
<p>That is why we think the market is asking broadly the right question, but too often reaching for the lazy answer. ‘Touched by AI’ is not the same as ‘made obsolete by AI’.</p>
<p>Adyen is a good example. It was a detractor for the quarter, but payments are not an optional layer. They are core infrastructure. As interfaces evolve, fraud risks become more sophisticated. The need for secure and reliable payment rails does not go away. If anything, it becomes more important.</p>
<p>For the right companies, AI will reinforce competitive advantages rather than erode it.</p>
<p>Spotify offers a different lens. It too is a detractor for the quarter, but we do not think it is well understood if it's seen simply as a music streaming service exposed to disruption.</p>
<p>Spotify is a global discovery and distribution platform. It connects creators and audiences at scale. Better recommendations, deeper personalisation and new interfaces should strengthen that position over time.</p>
<p>The important question is not whether AI changes the landscape. It obviously does. The question is whether it weakens the moat or deepens it. We think Spotify is a business that will benefit from further adoption of AI.</p>
<p>With so much focus on artificial intelligence at present, It's well worth saying that our work is not all about AI, or even more about digitisation more broadly.</p>
<p>One notable addition to the portfolio during the quarter was Exail Technologies, a French defence company. Exail helps customers navigate and operate safely in difficult nautical environments, especially where GPS is unreliable and underwater drones are becoming more widely used.</p>
<p>We think this speaks to an important long-term shift in defence procurement. We've been talking about this for some time, but we had struggled with the long-term growth prospects of some of the incumbents.</p>
<p>Little military innovation tends to happen between conflicts. And then, all of a sudden, the next war is being fought in a very different way from the last. We think Exail is on the right side of that evolution.</p>
<p>We funded the purchase through reductions in positions that performed strongly over the past few years, including ASML, TSMC and MercadoLibre.</p>
<p>So, what do periods like this require from us? Not to rush and mirror the market's mood, not a willingness to treat every sharp price move as proof of insight, and not a portfolio built around whatever narrative happens to be most fashionable at the time.</p>
<p>Our job is to think clearly when markets are uncomfortable, to keep testing which businesses are genuinely adaptable, deeply embedded and competitively advantaged, and to back exceptional companies through periods when the path is noisy and uncertain.</p>
<p>Long-term value is rarely created reacting to uncertainty in the same way as everyone else. It's created by owning exceptional businesses and backing them with patience and thinking independently when markets become too certain, too quickly.</p>
<p>That remains our focus.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3 class="TABLEHEADER1212pt">International Concentrated Growth</h3>
<p><strong>Annual past performance to 31 March each year (%)</strong></p>
<table border="1" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%; border-width: 0px; height: 74.6668px;">
<tbody>
<tr style="height: 18.6667px;">
<td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px;"> </td>
<td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;"><strong>2022</strong></td>
<td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;"><strong>2023</strong></td>
<td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;"><strong>2024</strong></td>
<td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;"><strong>2025</strong></td>
<td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;"><strong>2026</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 18.6667px;">
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px;">International Concentrated Growth Composite (gross)</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;">-19.8</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;">-9.2</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;">9.8</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;">9.7</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;">1.9</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 18.6667px;">
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px;">International Concentrated Growth Composite (net)</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;">-20.3</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;">-9.7</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;">9.0</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;">9.0</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;">1.2</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 18.6667px;">
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px;">MSCI ACWI ex US Index</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;">-1.0</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;">-4.6</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;">13.8</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;">6.6</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right;">25.6</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Annualised returns to 31 March 2026 (%)</strong></p>
<table border="1" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%; border-width: 0px; height: 93.0001px;">
<tbody>
<tr style="height: 37px;">
<td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 37px; width: 61.3387%;"> </td>
<td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 37px; width: 13.1043%; text-align: right;"><strong>1 year</strong></td>
<td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 37px; width: 12.713%; text-align: right;"><strong>5 years</strong></td>
<td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 37px; width: 12.844%; text-align: right;"><strong>10 years</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 18.6667px;">
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 61.3387%;">International Concentrated Growth Composite (gross)</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 13.1043%; text-align: right;">1.9</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 12.713%; text-align: right;">-2.2</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 12.844%; text-align: right;">13.1</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 18.6667px;">
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 61.3387%;">International Concentrated Growth Composite (net)</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 13.1043%; text-align: right;">1.2</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 12.713%; text-align: right;">-2.8</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 12.844%; text-align: right;">12.4</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 18.6667px;">
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 61.3387%;">MSCI ACWI ex US Index</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 13.1043%; text-align: right;">25.6</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 12.713%; text-align: right;">7.6</td>
<td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 12.844%; text-align: right;">8.9</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Source:</strong> Revolution, MSCI. US dollars. Net returns have been calculated by reducing the gross return by the highest annual management fee for the composite. 1 year figures are not annualised.<br><br></p>
<p><strong>Past performance is not a guide to future returns.</strong></p>
<p>Legal notice: MSCI makes no express or implied warranties or representations and shall have no liability whatsoever with respect to any MSCI data contained herein. The MSCI data may not be further redistributed or used as a basis for other indexes or any securities or financial products. This report is not approved, endorsed, reviewed or produced by MSCI. None of the MSCI data is intended to constitute investment advice or a recommendation to make (or refrain from making) any kind of investment decision and may not be relied on as such.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Risk factors </h3>
<p>This communication was produced and approved in April 2026 and has not been updated subsequently. It represents views held at the time and may not reflect current thinking.</p>
<p>The views expressed should not be considered as advice or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a particular investment. They reflect opinion and should not be taken as statements of fact nor should any reliance be placed on them when making investment decisions.</p>
<p>This communication contains information on investments which does not constitute independent research. Accordingly, it is not subject to the protections afforded to independent research, but is classified as advertising under Art 68 of the Financial Services Act (‘FinSA’) and Baillie Gifford and its staff may have dealt in the investments concerned.</p>
<p>All information is sourced from Baillie Gifford & Co and is current unless otherwise stated. </p>
<p>The images used in this communication are for illustrative purposes only.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Important information<br></strong>Baillie Gifford & Co and Baillie Gifford & Co Limited are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Baillie Gifford & Co Limited is an Authorised Corporate Director of OEICs.</p>
<p>Baillie Gifford Overseas Limited provides investment management and advisory services to non-UK Professional/Institutional clients only. Baillie Gifford Overseas Limited is wholly owned by Baillie Gifford & Co. Baillie Gifford & Co and Baillie Gifford Overseas Limited are authorised and regulated by the FCA in the UK. </p>
<p>Persons resident or domiciled outside the UK should consult with their professional advisers as to whether they require any governmental or other consents in order to enable them to invest, and with their tax advisers for advice relevant to their own particular circumstances.</p>
<p><strong>Financial intermediaries</strong><br>This communication is suitable for use of financial intermediaries. Financial intermediaries are solely responsible for any further distribution and Baillie Gifford takes no responsibility for the reliance on this document by any other person who did not receive this document directly from Baillie Gifford.</p>


