Blue Whale Growth, the investment fund backed by billionaire Peter Hargreaves, has reduced its exposure to the ‘Magnificent Seven’ group of major US tech companies due to concerns over their vast expenditure on artificial intelligence. Stephen Yiu, manager of the fund, told the Financial Times that he had “aggressively” sold shares in Microsoft to cash in profits, pushing the stock out of the fund’s top 10 holdings in the third quarter for the first time since its launch in 2017.
Hargreaves’ family holding in the Blue Whale Growth fund is worth more than £200mn. The fund returned 24 per cent this year to the end of November, compared with rival funds’ 15 per cent on average. Yiu’s decision to sell down some of the Magnificent Seven is the latest sign that investors have concerns over the companies’ future prospects.