hen analysts and portfolio managers pitch ideas at Edinburgh, Scotland, investment firm Baillie Gifford, there’s one rule everyone must follow. For the first 20 minutes, anyone speaking about the idea has to be positive, contributing only to the bullish case for the stock. Say anything critical and you’re swiftly escorted from the room.
It’s an unusual stance for a large asset manager to take in a business landscape fraught with risks. But among fund managers, Baillie Gifford, with its $245 billion under management, is an outlier. The firm pays little attention to traditional valuation metrics such as earnings per share or price/earnings ratios.
Based in Edinburgh’s 18th-century “New Town,” a short walk from the city’s medieval “Old Town,” Baillie Gifford is too big and too old to be dismissed as simply lucky. The firm was founded in 1908, shortly after the Panic of 1907, by Colonel Augustus Baillie and solicitor Carlyle Gifford.Big wins among disruptive technology companies like Amazon, Illumina and Tesla have helped make it easy for the Scottish firm to forget the rare dud stock that winds up in bankruptcy.
A monument for economic philosopher Adam Smith was unveiled on Edinburgh's Royal Mile on July 4th, 2008, just in time for the worst face-plant in capitalism in a century.When the internet stock bubble popped in 2000, Baillie Gifford suffered a setback, but as investors fled companies like Amazon, the firm backed Jeff Bezos’ vision. It was Amazon’s remarkable resilience and success that birthed the firm’s think-happy-thoughts-first, be-critical-later approach. Its timing was perfect.
Some $35 billion of Ballie Gifford’s capital is invested in China. Big holdings include surging delivery companies like Meituan-Dianping and budding e-commerce platform Pinduoduo. In Europe it owns HelloFresh, a meal-kit delivery company, and the Amazon of Latin America, MercadoLibre.