“At Davos at the beginning of this year cyber security made some very clear headlines at The World Economic Forum; Trump made protection one of his key objectives, and even here in the UK in February the Queen opened the National Crime Security Centre as a branch of GCHQ”.
Li describes the opportunity for investors as ‘anti-cyclical’ in that whatever happens in the economic cycle, cyber security is always going to be a risk.
“It’s a relatively new area in the scheme of the tech sector, and there are a lot of companies that are either infrastructure providers or service providers in that space,” he said, adding that the fund equally weights between the two areas.
Around 50% of the fund is listed in the US, with around 10% in Japan, 10% in Israel and 5% plus in South Korea.
“Looking at market cap sizes, this is generally an opportunity that is predominantly in the small-cap space, which is around 50% of the Nasdaq ISE Cyber Security Ucits index.
Up until Friday’s attack, the index was up 10.6% for the year. In 2016, it was relatively flat.
“It does have some correlation to broader tech equities, but it has a profile of its own because it is small to medium-cap lead and a growing industry, with M&A also a factor.”
