Chris Ford, Head of Growth Equities at Sanlam Investments, features in Chelsea FS Viewpoint Magazine and offers insight into his distinctive approach to the AI revolution.
“The Sanlam Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) fund invests in companies that are developing or integrating AI to their benefit. You may immediately think that this means we invest a lot in the tech sector, however, since the fund was launched, only around 40% has been invested in technology and related areas. This is because we are truly agnostic about which industries and sectors we invest in or where, geographically, those companies are based. If a company is engaging with AI in a meaningful way to help increase its long-term value, then we will consider it.
In our opinion, its longer-term socioeconomic impact could be comparable to that of the railways, the internal combustion engine, the telephone or the internet. There will be winners and losers from this transformation, with the winners enjoying faster economic growth than their competitors. It’s impossible to know precisely which businesses these will be, and it is for this reason that we take such a broad view on which industry and region could yield the best performance in the fund.
Our fund invests across a wide range of industries and sectors – slightly over 40% of the fund is invested in IT or related areas, 17% is invested in communication services, just under 12% is in industrials, just under 11% is in consumer discretionary and 10% is in healthcare. The remainder is invested in financials.”