Stonehage Fleming cuts back US and sticks with healthcare
Spending on healthcare has been increasing around the world for some years - a trend Stonehage Fleming is hoping to capitalise on (Carsten Snejbjerg/Bloomberg)
The rich and famous may live very different lives to the rest of us, but they have to work with the same markets as all of us.
We recently sat down with Stonehage Fleming, the largest independent multi-family office in Europe, to discuss how it has been shifting its investments over the course of what has been quite a turbulent year.
The company, which manages a cool $175bn, favours one sector above all else at the moment: healthcare.
Peter McLean, Stonehage Fleming’s head of multi-asset portfolio solutions, said the past year had been one of “substantial uncertainty and disruption” – culminating in “liberation day” when Donald Trump decided to slap huge tariffs on almost every country on the planet.
He said: “In light of these challenges, the quality style remains central to our equity strategy, targeting companies with the resilience and flexibility to adapt amid these changing conditions.
“Our strategy continues to favour the healthcare sector, despite its regulatory and tariff-related headwinds. This sector is home to several robust companies with strong earnings growth dynamics, trading at competitive valuation multiples.”
According to the World Bank, global expenditure on healthcare has been rising steadily for some years and is now about 10 per cent of global GDP, up from about 9 per cent a decade ago.
And of course, the population of many developed countries is ageing, so you don’t need too much imagination to see the demand for healthcare continuing to rise.
So if Stonehage Fleming is moving money towards healthcare, where is it being taken from?
McLean said: “At the beginning of the year, we made a strategic decision to reduce our allocation to smaller companies due to the high borrowing costs and ongoing economic uncertainty.
“We also decreased our exposure to broad US equities, reallocating more capital to global active managers who can navigate volatile market conditions over time.”
