The Hague – January 22, 2020 – The Juno Selection Fund ended 2019 with a strong performance. With a +33.8% performance, the return was the second highest in the fund’s twelve-year history. Once again the Selection Fund managed to leave European indices behind: the EMIX Smaller European Companies Index (net) rose by +28.6% during the year. The Dutch AEX index (dividends reinvested) also had a lower return (+ 27.9%).
 
After 2018 ended with a negative performance, 2019 was once again a very good year for the markets. Frans Jurgens, director and co-founder of Juno: “Despite the strong stock markets suggesting otherwise, the underlying profit growth of European companies is still at a very low level. It is clear that investors are not entering the market because of the strong earnings growth of European companies, but that they wanted to take advantage of the correction of the last months of 2018 to put their poorly-yielding savings to work in equities”.

Juno’s investment style focuses on the long term. This “buy and hold” strategy with a low turnover, is also reflected in the names in the portfolio. Lennart Smits, director and co-founder of Juno: “Juno’s strong preference is for ‘compounders’, companies that grow their earnings in a predictable manner, year after year. It is encouraging that we have had several companies in our portfolio for more than 10 years. Over that period, we have seen their profits increase by an average of 15% per year. That implies that their results doubled every five years during that time-frame.” Over the past 10 years, Juno has also seen this healthy earnings development translate in the share price appreciation of its investments and, therefore, in the increase in value of participations in the Selection Fund: a compound annual growth rate of +13.7% per year has been achieved over this past decade.
 
Juno remains optimistic about the opportunities that the market offers. We continue to find attractive (family-owned) companies that, with very strong business models and excellent management teams, are able to grow much faster than the average earnings growth that we see across the European continent. We are convinced that this earnings growth will continue to translate into higher share prices for those portfolio companies.

The quarterly report can be found here and the most recent factsheet here.

About Juno Investment Partners

Juno Investment Partners was established in 2007 as a fully independent fund manager and has an AIFM license (as referred to in Section 2:65 of the Wft), issued by the Dutch regulator AFM. Juno specializes in the selection of exceptional listed (family owned) companies in Europe. Companies that are able to achieve predictable and stable earnings growth year after year are considered for investment. The selection process focuses on the return on invested capital, a low debt ratio and free cash flows of a highly predictable nature. The analysts/portfolio managers compile a highly concentrated portfolio of approximately fifteen companies that they identify, analyze and visit regularly. Selected companies remain in the portfolio for a longer time period (usually more than five years). All analysts/portfolio managers have themselves invested in the Juno funds.

Juno offers three products: The Juno Selection Fund, which focuses on the selection of smaller and medium-sized listed companies, the Juno Continuation Fund for medium-sized companies and individual asset management using the same investment style, for larger clients through managed segregated accounts.

– The Juno Selection Fund was launched in 2008. This mutual fund invests in distinctive European small and medium-sized companies with an initial market capitalization of €250 million to €4 billion. In recent years, this investment style has resulted in above average investment returns for participants in the Juno Selection Fund. This fund has been hard closed for further (follow on) subscriptions since 2018.

– The same investment strategy is applied in the Juno Continuation Fund, which was launched on February 1, 2020. This fund focuses on unique, medium-sized European companies with a market value between €4 billion and €20 billion at the time of initial purchase. As is the case with the Selection Fund, the Continuation Fund also has a strong preference for investments in businesses that are family owned, or companies in which a family or management itself is also a shareholder.