The Peter Hargreaves-backed Blue Whale Growth fund is embarking on a recruitment drive after its assets more than tripled this year amid the Covid crisis.
In its latest monthly press update boutique manager Blue Whale revealed it is hiring for two roles in the new year – a business support associate and a junior investment analyst.
The pair of hires will provide additional support to the business as it continues to grow, the firm said.
There are a total of 12 people working at the boutique currently, including chairman Hargreaves (pictured right), as well as a a five-strong investment made up of Blue Whale Growth manager Stephen Yiu (pictured left), a co-manager and a trio of analysts. Blue Whale has three members in its operating, sales and marketing team.
Blue Whale Growth, which has a bias toward US equities and tech stocks, has enjoyed explosive growth during the Covid crisis with assets tripling from £200m at the start of 2020 to £650.8m as at 7 December, according to data from Trustnet.
The fund has returned 26.4% in the year-to-date, over double the IA Global sector average of 12%. However on a three-month view the fund is in the fourth quartile, returning 4.1% against the average fund’s 10.4%, thanks to the November vaccine rally which buoyed unloved value stocks.
Yiu first launched the fund in September 2017 with £25m in funding from Hargreaves. In September the Blue Whale chairman invested a further £25m to launch a Dublin-domiciled version of the fund. It currently is around £36.0m in size, taking the boutique’s total assets to just shy of £700m.
Yiu favours a highly concentrated portfolio of 25-35 stocks with Facebook, Visa, Paypal and Microsoft among his top 10 positions. He has previously told Portfolio Adviser he would be “very comfortable” running up to £5bn in the fund.
See also: Blue Whale’s Yiu: ‘Ban diversified portfolios’
More information about the prospective roles can be found on Blue Whale’s career page.
