Report October 2021
During October, Pareturn GVC Gaesco Columbus European Mid Cap Equity Fund class I increased by +2.21%. The Columbus Fund has risen by +18.99% YTD, and by +41.64% in the last 12 months . Since its inception in June 2008, Columbus’ return has been +184.7%, comfortably exceeding the broad European equity index.
Following the sell-off in September markets rebounded strongly this month on the back of stronger than expected Q3 results season, led by the US. The gentle recovery in the Chinese market added to the risk-friendly mood as the problems at China Evergrande were at least temporarily alleviated, as did the Congressional renewal of the extension of the US debt ceiling.
From the perspective of the portfolio, the current reporting season has been relatively benign with October bringing a positive trading update from Elementis (UK chemicals) and improved guidance from Edenred (French meal voucher business). However, despite the generally positive tone across the market many companies continue to complain of high and rising input costs, near term wage inflation and ongoing supply constraints in a number of sectors. Many of these impacts are expected to be transitory, but the ‘transition’ phase continues to be extended with many commentators now expecting the trends to continue until mid 2022.
During October the strongest contribution to the Fund came from our largest holding, Interpump (+13.84% in the month) the Italian specialist engineering group, which continues to perform well operationally and announced a new share buyback mandate. The other strong contributors were VGP (+12.8%), the Belgian listed logistics facility group and Safestore (+14.59), the UK listed self-storage Group, which benefitted from the strong performance of property related businesses in the month, which led to global REITs being the second best performing category across all assets classes. The rise in inflationary concerns continues to push investment into real assets such as commodities and property. Indeed the fund’s structural underweight in the oil & gas sector partly explains the relative underperformance over the month. The most significant negative contributions in October came from Bodycote (-8.9%), the UK listed heat treatment Group. Bodycote suffered along with other automotive related businesses as the sector continued to be plagued with component supply shortages and is affected by the energy high prices.
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We thank you for your trust and wish the best to you and your families during these uncertain times.
Since June 14, 2018 both domestic and foreign investors have been able to access the Columbus strategy via the master-feeder structure between the Columbus 75 Sicav in Spain (feeder) and the Luxembourg registered Pareturn GVC Gaesco Columbus European Midcap Equity Fund (master). The Luxembourg vehicle offers both institutional and retail share classes.
