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Value Investor Insight: Pursuing Enduring Growth Opportunities Around the World
Polen International Growth PMs discuss where they see the most compelling investment opportunities today.
Article Highlights
Value Investor Insight recently sat down with portfolio managers Todd Morris and Daniel Fields, who co-manage the Polen International Growth strategy. They discuss how Polen has extended the consistency and discipline of its U.S. investment approach to international markets and identify some of the most intriguing opportunities they see on the horizon.
- When investing internationally, there are important nuances relating to political, legal, and regulatory environments and foreign currency dynamics. Polen’s investment team conducts a rigorous assessment of these risks, considering the potential for macro factors to negate even their best bottom-up work. If they deem that risk too high, they won’t invest.
- One benefit of Polen’s concentrated investment approach is that the portfolio managers can easily say "no" whenever a company’s valuation takes them further out on the risk spectrum than they’d like to be.
- Polen’s International Growth strategy has been overweight in Europe, largely due to the guardrails the team has defined around business quality and growth. Todd and Daniel explain that when it comes to China, certain issues tied to risk have kept them on the sidelines.
- Todd and Daniel highlight key sectors where they are uncovering what they believe to be outstanding, fairly priced businesses capable of compounding their growth over the long term. These areas include distribution, accounting software, and outsourced drug trials.