Ibbotson International Shares High Opportunities - Sands Capital

Sands Capital    

Investment Style: Growth (US)

Sands Capital Management (Sands Capital) is an Arlington, Virginia-based fund manager 100.0 percent employee-owned and managed by its staff, which focuses solely on US large-cap growth investing. Frank Sands Snr and William Johnson (now retired) founded the firm in 1992.

Sands Capital is a bottom-up, large-cap, deep growth fund manager concentrating on high-quality companies. The firm's investment objective is to invest in companies with the long-term potential to outperform the broader market significantly.

The firm believes that company research encompasses three main elements: data and information-gathering, long- and short-term earnings estimates, and ongoing qualitative assessment of the substance of the long-term business prospects of existing and potential investments and their valuations. It is Sands Capital's opinion that the first two elements have been commodified and provide little if any research advantage. The firm's main area of focus is therefore the third element, where Sands Capital believes it can add value.

Sands Capital's investment process comprises three main steps: ideas generation, fundamental research, and portfolio construction. The investment team draws on numerous sources for initial data and investment ideas. This primary research enables the team to understand growth industries and companies from the perspective of a partner or co-owner, which Sands Capital believes is the essence of successful long-term investing.

The fund manager has six key investment criteria. The first three are that a company must have above-average earnings growth, significant competitive advantages/a unique business franchise, and a leadership position in a promising business space. The others are that the company must possess a clear mission and value-added focus, financial strength, and a reasonable valuation relative to the market.

Sands Capital then constructs a portfolio of up to 30 leading companies that evolves gradually. The house is largely a 'buy and hold' investor, and allows the companies in the portfolio to capture long-term business opportunities that lead to wealth creation. The manager will typically sell a stock if it becomes overvalued, the business matures, there is an adverse change in long-term fundamentals, or the reality differs from the initial analysis.

Sands Capital is led by Frank Sands Jnr as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer. Frank Sands Snr has stepped back to a role within the analyst team.