Bankers Investment Trust (The)

Investment summary

Soaring inflation, rising interest rates, slowing economic growth and the ongoing war in Ukraine have led to equity market weakness and volatility in 2022. Despite these headwinds, The Bankers Investment Trust (BNKR) has done a decent job relative to other global equity managers in navigating these choppy waters. A key strength of its strategy is regional diversification, providing differing and less correlated drivers of returns than some global equity strategies. For example, Asia has always been a notable feature here versus peers (Exhibit 2) and as Alex Crooke, the fund manager, has been looking to regions where economic growth is likely to be stronger, with Asia and China of particular interest, investors may see exposure to this region increase. In addition, in response to a less benign economic outlook, BNKR’s regional portfolio managers have been rotating out of stocks that could struggle in a tougher economic environment and into more dependable and stable stocks.