Investment Portfolio

Top Twenty Holdings

1 Microsoft

Microsoft develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices. Since Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, the company has moved away from its traditional hardware business, instead focused on cloud computing. In 2022, it made headlines with a $69bn deal for gaming group Activision Blizzard, and also bought fibre optic cable maker Lumenisity.

2 Apple

In 2022, Apple briefly hit a market capitalisation of $3 trillion. It remains the most valuable company in the world with demand for its personal computers, software, mobile communications devices, and networking solutions remaining robust even amid a weakening economic climate. Around 1.2bn people have bought an iPhone, its flagship product, since it launched in 2007.

3 Alphabet

Alphabet is best-known as the parent company of Google, the world’s leading search engine. However, it also owns YouTube, travel app Waze, ad management group DoubleClick, smart home devices group Nest and fitness tracker group Fitbit. The group is also a major provider of cloud services, though remains behind Amazon and Microsoft.

4 Broadcom

Broadcom designs and develops of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Its chips are used in a wide variety of markets, including data centres, networking, software, broadband, wireless, and storage and industrial markets. This year, the group launched a $61 billion takeover bid for cloud-computing company VMware, but this faces investigation from Europe’s competition regulators.

5 Mastercard

Mastercard is one of the largest payment processing companies in the world, offering a proprietary network, card payments and other financial services. Its principal business is to process payments between the banks of merchants and the card-issuing banks of their customers. In 2021, the group created a carbon footprint calculator to help customers understand how their spending is contributing to carbon emissions and global warming.

6 Taiwan Semiconductor

Established in 1987, Taiwan Semiconductor is the world’s largest semiconductor foundry, manufacturing 12,302 different products using 291 distinct technologies for 535 different customers in 2021. Its semiconductors are used in a broad range of industries, including mobile devices, high performance computing and the Internet of Things. The group is currently building a semiconductor foundry in Arizona, USA, using its 5-nanometer technology.

7 Paycom Software

Paycom is an US online payroll and human resource technology provider, founded in 1998 by Chad Richison. The company provides functionality and data analytics that businesses need to manage the complete employment life cycle. Its software is designed to help HR professionals with the administrative process of data entry, freeing them to focus on strategy that drives business forward.

8 Visa

Visa is a payment processing and financial services company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It facilitates electronic funds transfers throughout the world. This year, the company saw a change at the top, with the appointment of Ryan McInerney as CEO, from 1 February 2023. He takes over from Alfred F. Kelly, Jr, who had been in place since 2016.

9 Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks has been among the most resilient of the cybersecurity companies in 2022. It has made the difficult transition to a subscription model in recent years, which is now reflected in more stable earnings. Security remains a huge problem for individuals and corporations, ensuring ongoing demand for the group’s next-generation firewalls and other network security features.

10 Datadog

Datadog is a cloud software group, providing monitoring of servers, databases, tools, and services, through its data analytics platform. The group was founded in 2010 by Olivier Pomel and Alexis Lê-Quôc, ultimately floating on the Nasdaq in 2019. The group has benefited from broader adoption of cloud computing and is now compatible with all the major web services providers – Amazon, Microsoft, Google and others.

11 Arista Networks

Arista Networks was founded in 2008 by Andy Bechtolsheim (previously the co-founder of Sun Microsystems), Ken Duda and David Cheriton. It is an industry leader in cloud networking, tying together multiple servers. Among its blue-chip client base, Arista helped build Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure platform. Its technology has been a vital part in allowing cloud providers to build scale.

12 Pure Storage

Pure Storage manufactures hardware and software data storage products. The company launched in 2009 and has received backing from, among others, the venture capital arm of the American Central Intelligence Agency. It went public in August 2015 and moved to profitability in 2017. Since its flotation, it has acquired StorReduce, Compuverde and Portworx.

13 Aspen Technology

AspenTech's software collects and analyses data to improve the reliability and efficiency of industrial assets in sectors such as bulk chemicals, pharmaceuticals, power generation and metals & mining. It can help companies with supply chain optimisation and planning, or improving the energy efficiency of their network. It continues to benefit from increasing cloud adoption among industrial companies, along with the demand for cloud-based data analytics.

14 ON Semiconductor

ON Semiconductor was spun off from Motorola's semiconductor unit in 1999. Since then, it has created a portfolio of energy efficient semiconductors, designed to help companies reduce power usage in their devices. Clients include the industrial, medical and defence sectors across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. It entered the silicon carbide market with its acquisition of GT Advanced Technologies in late 2021.

15 Oracle

The software and hardware giant showed its resilience in 2022. At the end of 2021, it agreed to buy healthcare recordkeeper Cerner for $28bn, which helped shore up its revenues during the volatile conditions of 2022. Its has amassed a vast range of products and services under the watchful eye of executive chairman and original founder Larry Ellison, who continues to own a significant portion of the company.

16 Meta Platforms

Facebook rebranded as Meta Platforms in 2021, signalling its ambitions in the metaverse. It has been a tough transition, with metaverse adoption struggling amid a tough economic climate. Meta still owns powerful brands, such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, but hit some legal hurdles in 2022, including fines from the EU and the settlement of a $725m class action lawsuit.

17 HubSpot

Hubspot was established in 2006 by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, providing software for, among other areas, customer relationship management, social media marketing, content management, web analytics, search engine optimisation and customer support applications. The company floated in 2014. It has also made strategic acquisitions, including Kemvi and The Hustle.

18 Intuit

Financial software group Intuit creates options for tax compliance, wealth management and small business accounting. Its range of brands include Turbo Tax, QuickBooks and email marketing platform Mailchimp. The company was founded in 1983 by Scott Cook and Tom Proulx.

19 Cyberark Software

CyberArk specialises in identity management, calling itself the ‘first line of defence against malicious actors and unauthorised access’. It has a team of researchers dedicated to examining emerging attack techniques. Its software is used across the financial services, energy, healthcare and government sectors. It listed in 2014, and subsequently made a series of acquisitions, including Viewfinity, Conjur, Vaultive and Idaptive.

20 Flex

Flex specialises in supply chain management and manufacturing solutions software. It operates in a range of end markets, including healthcare and industrial applications. As well as promoting efficiency, the group also helps companies become more sustainable and minimise the environmental impact of their operations. It has seen strong demand as companies seek to make their supply chains more resilient in the wake of the pandemic.

Portfolio Analysis

at 31 December 2022

Geographical breakdown

As cash is excluded and the weightings for each country are rounded to the nearest tenth of a percent, the aggregate weights may not equal 100%.

Sector breakdown

As cash is excluded and the weightings for each sector are rounded to the nearest tenth of a percent, the aggregate weights may not equal 100%.

Investment Portfolio

at 31 December 2022