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WS EkinsGuinness Global Thematics Fund

Overview

Summary

  • The WS EkinsGuinness Global Thematics Fund received the assets of the VT Downing Global Investors Fund on 20th June 2025.
  • Anthony Eaton continues in his role as Fund Manager with no change to his investment approach or strategy.
  • The Fund is a thematically invested fund focused on the needs and wants of the growing middle-class population.
  • We believe this population is a homogeneous borderless group, showing a single set of demands and aspirations.
  • Currently numbering around 3.3 billion, we believe the global middle-class will be closer to 5.3 billion at the end of this decade.
  • That is a needle-moving demographic to be engaged with that will drive our six key themes: 

Investment Approach

We use pattern hunting strategies to identify areas of economic activity attracting capital. We buy equity stakes in businesses that supply the needs and wants of the expanding global middle class population. We seek to invest in the leading companies within any business grouping we identify.

Our top-down conviction primarily leads to larger capitalisation businesses and aims to avoid undue exposure to any single factor. We balance defensive and cyclical stocks and sectors depending on where we are in the business cycle.

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Performance

(as at 30 September 2025)

 

* Performance shown is the total return (net of fees & costs) for the Accumulation F share class of the WS EkinsGuinness Global Thematics Fund since 20th June 2025, prior to which is the VT Downing Global Investors Fund Accumulation F share class. The WS EkinsGuinness Global Thematics Fund was launched on 20th June 2025 following the merger with the VT Downing Global Investors Fund. The start date shown is 30th April 2020 on the basis that May 2020 was the first full month of performance with the fund fully invested following launch on 23 March 2020. The Fund is not managed against any benchmark – the Investment Association Global Sector is shown as a Comparator benchmark as per FCA PS 19-04. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. Source: Ekins Guinness LLP.

Key Facts

Structure & Administration

Structure UCITS /
ISA		 Authorised
Corporate
Director		 Depositary Custodian Auditor Income /
Accumulation		 Dividend
Payment
Dates		 Valuation &
Cut Off		 Comparator
Benchmark
UK
Authorised
OEIC
Yes
Waystone
Financial
Services
BNY Mellon
BNY Mellon
KPMG
Both
31 January
&
31 July
12 noon
daily
IA Global

Share Classes

Share Class Minimum
Holding		 Managment Fee Ongoing
Charges
Figure		 ISIN SEDOL
F Accumulation GBP
£1,000
0.60%
0.93%
GB00BTFYPH16
BTFYPH1
F Income GBP
£1,000
0.60%
0.93%
GB00BTFYPJ30
BTFYPJ3

Managers

Anthony Eaton

Anthony joined Ekins Guinness LLP in June 2025 when the Downing Global Opportunities Fund transferred over. He joined Greig Middleton in 1991 and was appointed a director in 1996. He moved to JM Finn & Co in 2001 and became lead manager on the CF JM Finn Global Opportunities Fund in 2005 where he returned a 10.4%* compound annual growth rate through to August 2019 when it was sold to Thornbridge. Anthony has consistently applied an evolutionary strategy over the past 15 years to pick individual stocks by identifying top-down growth themes as the global middle-class phenomenon has gained momentum.

Charles Ekins

Charles is the founder and Chief Executive of Ekins Guinness LLP. Previously he was Chief Investment Officer at Valu-Trac Investment Management, prior to which he spent 19 years at Morgan Grenfell (Deutsche) Asset Management where he was a portfolio manager, member of the Investment Policy Committee and client director. He read Maths with Computing Science at Bristol University and has an MBA from the City University Business School. Charles is a Director of the Herald Worldwide Technology Fund (Dublin OEIC).

Portfolio Analysis

(as at 30 September 2025)

Top 10 Holdings

Sector Analysis

Investment Commentary

as at 31 July 2025

The Fund rose by 5.2% in July which gives a return of 6.3% since 20th June which was the date of transfer of the Fund to Ekins Guinness LLP. Tech remains dominant but there are plenty of other areas of interest. Our Japan investments are pulling their weight, as is infrastructure as an asset class globally. It seems that overtly consumer facing businesses are experiencing slow conditions but that capex into AI is still rising at levels that exceed expectations. Behind that phenomenon is the fact that AI and data more generally requires heaps of energy.

A recently published IEA special report, Energy and AI, projects that electricity demand from data centres worldwide is set to more than double by 2030 to around 945 terawatt-hours (TWh), slightly more than the entire electricity consumption of Japan today. AI will be the most significant driver of this increase, with electricity demand from AI-optimised data centres projected to more than quadruple by 2030. In the United States, power consumption by data centres is on course to account for almost half of the growth in electricity demand between now and 2030. Driven by AI use, the US economy is set to consume more electricity in 2030 for processing data than for manufacturing all energy-intensive goods combined, including aluminium, steel, cement and chemicals. In advanced economies more broadly, data centres are projected to drive more than 20% of the growth in electricity demand between now and 2030, putting the power sector in those economies back on a growth footing after years of stagnating or declining demand in many of them.

Power is a dominant theme within this Fund and, in theory at least, whoever the winners ultimately are in the Tech race, they all use masses of power.

 

Documents

    Documents

    Links to external sites

 Umbrella Documents

   Application Forms

   Reports

How to Invest

via Platforms

Directly

The WS EkinsGuinness Dynamic Growth Fund is available on the following platforms:

Allfunds Aegon AJ Bell Alliance Trust
Ascentric
Aviva
Barclays
FNZ
Hargreaves
Lansdown
Interactive
Investor
Novia
Nucleus
Pershing
Transact
Zurich

Contact Ekins Guinness LLP

Contact Waystone Fund Services

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