Insights

Glimpse a universe of opportunity at Baillie Gifford’s Disruption Week in November 2023.

Less foreign visitors, more cashless payments. Donald Farquharson reflects on post-Covid Japan

Investment manager Lee Qian and investment specialist Rosie Rankin discuss the positive change portfolio.

Eoin Anderson is joined by Joe Faraday and Katie Muir to discuss remaining focused on the future, and the importance of International All Cap sticking to its approach.

Investment manager Scott Lothian reflects upon the recent drivers of performance across investment markets, how the current environment is influencing investment decisions, and the key risks and opportunities for the Multi Asset portfolio.

Fund manager Matthew Brett and investment specialist Thomas Patchett discuss growth investing in Japan.

Chris Davies is joined by Thomas Hodges to discuss why he sees reasons for optimism in European equities, and why he believes now is the time to start paying attention.

How the Positive Change Strategy backs firms tackling social and environmental challenges.

How the cycle parts maker symbolises the kind of firms International All Cap is looking for.

Tracking our pursuit of growth companies over time.

Key insights from the International All Cap Strategy picked from the past 30 years.

Milena Mileva on picking International All Cap’s future winners.

How relationship building, performance and tales of Scotland helped establish our international funds.

A focus on growth and innovation has led to exciting finds such as Tesla and Ocado.

The Positive Change Team’s latest impact report, covering our activity over the last five years and plans for the future.

In the context of high inflation and market volatility, portfolio managers James Dow and Toby Ross discuss current views and explain how focusing on long-term income growth remains critical to facing these challenges.

Online infrastructures and digital developments in the education, energy, and transport sectors make for an exciting future.

Tim Garratt considers how we value exciting businesses and reflects on what we lose when we fail to imagine.

Growth stocks have crashed down to earth. Has growth had its day or will it come back stronger?

It’s not that we do ESG, but how we do it. The ESG Team list 2021’s key stewardship activities.

Join Roddy Snell and Ben Durrant to discuss current views and portfolio positioning for the Asia ex Japan strategy and learn why we continue to believe this is the most attractive region globally for growth investors.

Investment Managers Tom Slater, Gary Robinson, Kirsty Gibson and Dave Bujnowski share their thoughts on the investment environment, explain why they believe there is scope for upside from here, and discuss their search for transformational growth companies.

Join Investment Managers Tom Slater, Gary Robinson, Kirsty Gibson and Dave Bujnowski as they share their thoughts on the investment environment, explain why they believe there is scope for upside from here, and discuss their search for transformational growth companies.

Academia has taught us that size matters – provided you can effectively control for quality. Fortunately, as Steve Vaughan explains, that is the fundamental role of active stock pickers.

Join Portfolio Construction Group Member, Joe Faraday and Client Service Manager, Andrew Daynes, as they discuss the importance of maintaining consistency in uncertain times.

Baillie Gifford spots investment opportunities in a smartphone-transformed nation.

When the going gets tough, exceptional companies keep going. Stephen Paice on Europe’s best.

Join Brian Lum, Charlie Broughton & Richard Gall as they reflect on the first three years of the Smaller Companies strategy.

In this webinar summary, Nick Thomas and Christel Brodie, investment specialists, cover growth investing during difficult periods and highlight the long-term growth drivers in the International Growth portfolio.

Nick Thomas hosts a discussion of the investment landscape with his Portfolio Construction Group colleagues, Tom Coutts and Julia Angeles.

Join Kelly Cameron as she hosts Joe Faraday, one of our International All Cap PCG Members, and Katie Muir, one of our International All Cap Investment Specialists, as they discuss the International All Cap Portfolio past performance and their outlook for the next few years.

James Budden on holding your nerve through short-term setbacks and supporting exceptional growth companies.

Scott Nisbet interviews the Long Term Global Growth decision-makers discussing volatility, inflation, interest rates, China and portfolio holdings: Roblox, SEA, Moderna and Coupang.

Good investing takes quick reactions as well as a long-term vision.

Winter 2021 International Alpha Anthology of content.

Investment manager Sophie Earnshaw shares her latest thoughts on investing in China.

Japan’s ability to anticipate technological change should see it through the ups and downs to come.

Investing in sustainability by focusing on opportunities for reward rather than ESG scores.

Willingness to change gives Chinese firms an innovation advantage.

Good investing takes quick reactions as well as a long-term vision.

Can plant-based foods save the planet? Investment manager Brian Lum explores changing attitudes.

Moderna’s mRNA vaccines are all set to become the cornerstone of an efficient health system.

Watch the recordings from our week-long 'Disruption Week' event, during which we covered the exciting topics of healthcare, transport, digital payment platforms and sustainable agriculture.

Decarbonisation and baby boomer spending are set to drive asset prices over the years ahead.

Nick Thomas is joined by James Anderson and Tom Coutts to discuss the current investment landscape and the evolving situation in China.

Alicia Cowley, member of the Asia Client Service Team, is joined by ESG specialists Marianne Harper Gow and Michelle O’Keefe to discuss the burning question: Does climate change pose a risk to investment returns or are we able to identify investment opportunities in this area?

Our international investors are explorers: which of the disruptors and innovators will deliver?

Investment manager Sophie Earnshaw and ESG specialist Gavin Grant discuss how they approach ESG and stewardship as part of Baillie Gifford’s International All Cap Strategy.

Will the climate crisis response alter asset class returns? The Multi Asset Team investigates.

Find out why small companies are one of the richest hunting grounds for long-term growth investors.

What’s left of exception growth companies? With the internet and the cloud, the sky’s the limit.

Baillie Gifford’s multi asset funds aim to provide maturing pension schemes protection from whatever economic weather may arise.

Client Director Jan Oliver hosts a webinar on Baillie Gifford’s Income solutions. She is joined by James Dow, Torcail Stewart and Steven Hay, investment managers on our Global Income Growth Strategy, our Strategic Bond Strategy and our Multi Asset Income Strategy respectively. The managers explain their investment philosophy and how, through a diversified income portfolio, they aim to deliver repeatable, durable and income-producing solutions for their clients.

This short video summaries the highlights from a recent webinar in which Richard Gall, Steve Vaughan and Brian Lum, members of the International Smaller Companies Portfolio Construction Group, discusses the small-cap effect, the team structure, and the investment approach to finding exceptional smaller companies.

Unique to itself and often surprising, the digital transformation of the world’s third largest economy offers exciting new openings for investors, writes Donald Farquharson, head of Baillie Gifford’s Japanese equities team and Thomas Patchett, Japanese Equity Specialist.

Richard Gall, Steve Vaughan and Brian Lum, members of the International Smaller Companies Portfolio Construction Group, discuss the small-cap effect, the team structure, and the investment approach to finding exceptional smaller companies.

Having been outperformed by US equities over the longer term, the time may now be right for the international asset class to bounce back, as Stephen Corr explains.

Kristen Ross is joined by Hamish Maxwell and Stephen Corr, members of the specialist international team at Baillie Gifford, to discuss the development of humankind and how it has led us to growth, and why they think now is a great time to tilt portfolios to the international markets to take advantage of growth opportunity.

Nick Thomas and Christel Brodie, investment specialists on the International Growth Team, give an update on the activity of the portfolio over the last quarter, covering portfolio positioning, transactions and pipeline ideas.

In this webinar, Client Service Director Matthew Coyle is joined by Joe Faraday, a decision maker on the International All Cap Strategy, and Charlie Broughton, an investment manager in the Smaller Companies Team and specialist representation for International All Cap. Joe and Charlie explain that although many understand the concept of idea generation as a light bulb moment, for the International All Cap Team it’s a gradual process that develops over time.

The Global Alpha Paris-Aligned portfolio offers a pathway for clients to align their assets with the objectives of the Paris Agreement. Here, we provide some background to the Paris Accords and outline how we aim to implement its objectives.

The response to Covid-19, unimaginable a few years ago, is just one illustration of how healthcare innovation has led to a range of revolutionary new therapies.

We call our methodology long-term income, not short-term yield. In this paper we share our experience of picking stocks using this growth-focused approach. We explain why we think the best is yet to come for this approach. And we highlight three simple questions we ask of any company when picking stocks for our income-growth portfolio.

Client Director Stuart Dunbar is joined by Stephen Paice, Head of the European Equity Team and Moritz Sitte, portfolio manager of our European funds, to discuss the question ‘Are you investing in the right Europe?’.

Caroline Cook explains the Global Stewardship Team’s vision for a successful, low carbon world in 2050, and how it impacts their investment approach.

In this year’s Research Agenda, Global Alpha’s investment managers share their thoughts on how change can help shape the portfolio.

When we are caught up in the drama of the present, it can be hard to see the accelerated progress that accompanies it. With technology firmly in the driving seat, Scott Nisbet explains why he sees a decade of growth ahead.

Client Director Tatjana Evans-MacLeod highlights the most notable discussion points from the recent LTGG webinar, in which investment managers Mark Urquhart, Gemma Barkhuizen and Linda Lin discussed turnover, valuation, China, ESG, and capacity.

In this webinar recording, US Equity strategy specialist Ben James talks to all four of the key decision makers in the US Equities Team, Tom Slater, Kirsty Gibson, Gary Robinson and Dave Bujnowski. The team explore the thought processes that have helped them navigate the challenge of maintaining a 5-10 year investment horizon during what has been a year of rapid change, followed by questions from attendees.

Companies no longer follow the traditional lifecycle from founding to IPO. Increasingly, they are remaining private for longer, supported by companies such as Baillie Gifford, and enjoying substantial growth before reaching public markets, as Robert Natzler explains.

In this webinar recording, client directors Anthony Spagnolo and Ben Drury share some ideas about what the next 20 years could bring.

Truly remarkable progress is being made in solving some of the world’s biggest problems by unlocking nature at its most granular level.

Our goal as investors is the identification and nurturing of companies capable of outstanding long-term returns. The excellent studies of Professor Hank Bessembinder and others make clear that long-run wealth creation is dominated by a remarkably small number of extraordinary companies, often powering technological or societal change.

Baillie Gifford’s Charles Plowden, co-manager of Global Alpha, hails a firm whose ambitions match the vastness of the subcontinent of India.

How does a company de-age? Jared Anderson thinks about how Japanese companies are changing their working practices to meet modern expectations.

The starting point for investing in biotechs is science that is credible, scalable and differentiated. But that on its own does not guarantee a commercially successful business. The Health Innovation Team share their approach to investing in biotech at a time when the pace of innovation is exploding and the possibilities are endless.

Client director Jon Henry talks through the highlights of the recent Global Alpha webinar on ‘Mental Models’, a concept introduced earlier this year in the Global Alpha Research Agenda.

The complexity of assessing societal impact shouldn’t deter investors from looking at a company from every angle, argues Marianne Harper Gow.

There’s no such thing as a big European tech platform, or is there? Chris Davies explores the rise of European platform businesses, questioning whether they are coming of age.

China has defied recession in 2020, but where to now? Investment manager Roderick Snell anticipates big things ahead.

With valuation formulas found wanting once again, Mark Urquhart writes in praise of uncertainty.

The companies that interest Lee Qian most are the ones that are driving society forward while rewarding shareholders. Iona Bain talks to the Positive Change Fund co-manager about capitalism at its best.

More of us are living longer, staying healthier for longer and working for longer. What are the implications for investing and financing this longer life? Listen to Baillie Gifford’s Steven Hay to find out.

Julia Angeles, investment manager on the Health Innovation Team, speaks to Claire Bell, former newspaper journalist and inquisitive researcher for Baillie Gifford. Angeles and Bell discuss the hot topics of data, artificial intelligence and ethics.

Companies become more efficient as they grow. In the past, that involved big capital outlays and was bad news for challengers. However, as Gary Robinson explains, entrepreneurs can now rent the essential tools from cloud platforms, enabling them to compete more easily.

Integrating ESG into company research requires rigour, nuance and a long-term perspective says Marianne Harper Gow.

Few things matter more to an investor than understanding and anticipating change. As we celebrate 15 years of Global Alpha, we share some thoughts on how the portfolio, our process and the team have developed over time.

Ben Drury, client director, talks to Helen Xiong, an investor and soon-to-be key decision-maker for the Global Alpha strategy.

Three decades into running dedicated Asian ex Japan portfolios, what is it that we can see that the market does not? We explain how our investment approach – the search for fat tails – allows us to exploit persistent market inefficiencies to the benefit of our clients.

Managers of the International Growth strategy Tom Coutts, Lawrence Burns, Brian Lum and Julia Angeles give an insight into their investment philosophy.

Income investing has been shaken by the coronavirus, but how will this affect the dividend payers of the future? Baillie Gifford investment manager James Dow gives us a glimpse of the potential star performers of tomorrow.

We are in an era of great convergence. The Health Innovation strategy seeks to support this era of change by looking out for innovative and pioneering companies that have the potential to bring substantial improvements to human health and healthcare systems.

One ought to be an optimist to invest in Emerging Markets, but so very few analysts are. Baillie Gifford’s Emerging Markets team explain how they fly in the face of market inefficiencies in their search for excess returns.

For Full Year 2019, updating on contributions towards a more sustainable and inclusive world.

You can’t predict the future, but you can prepare for it by investing in those businesses that will help create it. Jenny Davis turns to history to provide some context as to why she believes the unsung heroes of the modern economy will be the titans of the future.

Interview with Stuart Dunbar.

Technological developments over recent decades mean reality has outpaced the science fiction of his youth since Mark Urquhart joined Baillie Gifford almost 25 years ago. Now, scanning the Covid-19 driven global economy, he sets out his enthusiasm and expectations for the next decade and beyond.

First to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, the Asia ex Japan region is in robust health and its innovative companies are thriving. Roderick Snell surveys the Asian landscape and argues that Asia is where to look for superior long-term growth.

Growth stocks have generally fared better than value stocks during the coronavirus downturn. Tom Slater, partner and head of Baillie Gifford’s US Equities Team explains why.

The old order of dividend-paying companies has been overthrown by the coronavirus pandemic. The task now, writes James Dow, the co-head of Bailie Gifford’s equity income strategies, is to take a long hard look at the potential winners of the future.

The best investment advice doesn’t grow old. When former Baillie Gifford Partner Edward Hocknell wrote ‘How to Invest in Equities and Stay Sane’ back in 2012, ‘global pandemic’ was just one on a list of scenarios for business continuity managers and civil servants to plan for.

Medical developments are increasingly dependent on technology. Baillie Gifford investors look at some of the more innovative companies and their importance in the current pandemic, as well as considering how the situation we are living through will lay the foundations for a new era in healthcare, underpinned by data.

Are the abrupt changes brought about by the coronavirus (Covid-19) temporary or permanent? Dave Bujnowski considers how a post-coronavirus future may look, and where the biggest changes might be.

Fear of missing out on dividend payments has sustained investment in oil and tobacco companies for many years. Now, however, the returns are dwindling. And, as Scott Nisbet explains, the door is opening for investors who see investing with a conscience as being less about avoiding bad companies and more about backing good.

Quitting tobacco and fossil fuels should no longer carry a wealth warning, writes Scott Nisbet.

Scott Nisbet tells Malcolm Borthwick what he’s learnt from previous crises, why he’s staying calm and why now’s the time to read Albert Camus.

Our annual business update 2020.

Fifty years after Apollo 11, can a fresh wave of innovation in space technology open new frontiers and promising investment opportunities? Investment manager, Luke Ward looks across the gulf of space and gives us his views.

With their curiosity for learning undiminished, Global Alpha’s investment managers share where they think their quest for learning will take them in the year ahead.

Toby Ross shows how Baillie Gifford’s growth approach to income investing, starts from a very different philosophical position compared with our peers. Take a look from a different angle.

Investment manager, Praveen Kumar explains why the Japanese cosmetics industry is in a period of rapid growth and how it could be set to continue for the long term. October 2019.

It’s essential to be realistic and keep the risk of over-optimism in check. But there’s plenty to feel positive about in emerging markets, says Tim Erskine-Murray, who offers an insight into the reasons for his unwavering enthusiasm.

The big four incumbents in robotics are gearing up for a challenge. In a reshaping global industry, they are readying themselves for the march of the cobots.

Our support of inquisitive people plays a crucial role in our investment research. Discover more in our academia anthology.

An accompaniment to our annual Impact Report using a different lens to look at the contribution of the Positive Change portfolio to society.

Toby Ross on how we engage on responsible taxation.

Splitting hairs or a useful risk indictor? Allen Farrington addresses sector classification and why our industry has got it wrong when it comes to comparing technology companies.

Malcolm Borthwick is joined by investment manager Milena Mileva to discuss how profound changes in consumer behaviour are changing the retail landscape both online and in bricks-and-mortar stores.

Ben Buckler explores the A share opportunity in China.

Jenny Davis explores the Asian opportunity.

Growth investors have had a good decade. Dave Bujnowski explains why he remains convinced that, despite suggestions to the contrary, growth investors look set to enjoy more of the same over the coming years – provided they look in the right places.

There are lots of reasons not to invest in Europe. Its economic growth is uninspiring and much of its stock index is made up of bureaucratic corporate dinosaurs. But beyond the negative headlines, there are still exciting investment opportunities to be found. They include potential tenbaggers – companies whose share price could increase ten-fold.

Investment Manager, Kate Fox explores how fashion might evolve from eco-culprit to eco-warrior, and where investment opportunities might arise along the way.

Tom Slater, head of Baillie Gifford’s US Equities team reports on how visionary businesses are looking beyond current market events and thinking about the future.

Industrial biotech companies can already produce synthetic spider silk and plant-based burgers that taste like meat. Future possibilities include timber produced from yeast. In the latest episode of our podcast, Kirsty Gibson tells Malcolm Borthwick why she's fascinated by the opportunities of industrial biotech and its enormous investment potential.

Governance and Sustainability analysts Michelle O’Keeffe and Laura Thomson answer some of the most common climate change questions they are asked in relation to climate change and Baillie Gifford’s position regarding it.

With online companies currently dominating sales, it is widely expected that the need for tangible stores will continue to decrease, but Baillie Gifford has spotted a rise in forward-thinking companies who are utilising physical spaces to provide an innovative and interactive shopping experience.

In Baillie Gifford we have a very different perspective on 2018, and hence the future, than the one you will be used to reading about.

Almost unnoticed, Japanese management is changing for the better. Head of Japan Donald Farquharson looks at the transformation drawing on the experience of three decades of engagement.

As lifespans increase, more of us will inevitably encounter Alzheimer’s. Thankfully, new advances mean that we may be approaching a breakthrough in treating the disease. The Death of Alzheimer’s asks how Baillie Gifford can support this effort.

In his latest paper, James Anderson discusses Ben Graham’s book The Intelligent Investor, the seminal work on Value investing that remains as valid today as it did when he wrote it seven decades ago. James considers the author’s views and their implications for Growth investing in the current environment.

Global Stewardship offers a differentiated global equity portfolio, consisting of both Local Heroes and Global Champions. Mike Gush explains why this makes them different.

The investment management industry is often accused of failing to put clients’ interests first. Tom Coutts investigates and considers what we should be doing differently.

Investment managers Lawrence Burns and Paulina Sliwinska share thoughts on future trends with Professor Brian Arthur.

It is taken for granted that stocklending is a harmless activity that can produce a little extra return with limited risk. But is this really so? Scott Nisbet investigates.

Toby Ross shows how Baillie Gifford’s growth approach to income investing, starts from a very different philosophical position compared with our peers. Take a look from a different angle.

Japan often has a reputation for low dividend payments. Investment Manager, Karen See explains why this has not always been the case in the past and might not be in the future.

Many patients with kidney failure face an agonising wait for a donor or a life on dialysis. However, as Julia Angeles writes, new technologies may offer a brighter future.

If capturing extremes is the key to investment returns, James Anderson sets out how we can improve our chances of investing well. He highlights the exponential long-term trends in energy, healthcare and technology that he believes will be at the heart of a dramatic implosion of the old order and will become the cornerstone of the new.

The story of investing is really the story of the big winners, those exceptional companies that reshape our world and in the process reap the rewards. Lawrence Burns sets out how a long-term and patient approach to investment is necessary to identify those truly great companies that could drive extreme returns.

Technological evolution continues to occur at an ever-increasing pace. Douglas Brodie looks at some of the areas likely to see the greatest change in the coming years, and the investment opportunities that will open up as a result.

The active investment industry as a whole appears to have done a better job of enriching itself than adding value for clients. Is it worth defending? Stuart Dunbar thinks so. He believes there is value in employing good active fund managers. He sets out the approaches that he believes are most likely to deliver outperformance for clients, suggests why investors and investment managers have failed to implement them and what should be done regarding it.

Stuart Dunbar discusses the woes of what our industry has become alongside the potential opportunities presented by its somewhat over-evolved state.

Investment manager Julia Angeles strikes an optimistic note as she explores some of the recent developments in healthcare, which one day she hopes will bring an end to cancer.

Investment Manager Iain Campbell does not claim that Baillie Gifford’s investors are cleverer, have better systems or information, or that they work harder, travel further or construct more complex spreadsheets. Rather, he elaborates on an identifiable market inefficiency that our unusual structure and long-term philosophy allows us to exploit.

Whereas manufacturing once provided developing countries with a clear economic development path, robotics has made the route more challenging. Lawrence Burns explores the dilemma India now faces and suggests a possible route for its future development.

The golden age for EM economic growth is over, but for some EM companies, the opportunity set may be far larger than anything EM investors have seen to date. Will Sutcliffe dispels some common misconceptions surrounding EM investing.

Joe Faraday shares his enthusiasm for the importance of cities as growth drivers, explaining how access to world-leading academics and their research has shaped his thinking.

Julia Angeles, an investment manager in the EAFE Alpha team, considers how scientific developments have led to changes in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, and why the current rate of progress is set to accelerate in the coming years. Angeles also explains why she opted to undergo genomic testing.