7th April 2022

This fund can be found in our Pentatonic range of portfolios which are income based – used where the requirement for your investment is to have a regular income.

BlackRock founded in 1988, is an American, multinational investment management company based in New York. As the world’s largest asset manager it currently holds $10 Trillion in assets under management (as of January 2022). BlackRock operates globally and has offices in 30 countries and clients in over 100 countries.

The fund was launched in May 2011 and as of 28/02/2022 holds £1,532m across 42 holdings. We use this fund within our Pentatonic 4-6 portfolios and represents 3-4% of the spread within these portfolios. The fund has a 5-year annualised return of 7.32% (as of 31/03/2022) and is supported by Raynor Spencer Mills as a core European equity income fund to form part of any well-diversified income orientated portfolio.

Within the top 10 holdings you will see exposure to the following-

Novo Nordisk – representing 4.19% of the fund- is a Danish multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Denmark. Novo Nordisk manufactures and markets pharmaceutical products and services specifically diabetes care medications and devices. Novo Nordisk is also involved with hemostasis management, growth hormone therapy and hormone replacement therapy. The company makes several drugs under various brand names, including Levemir, Tresiba, NovoLog, Novolin R, NovoSeven, NovoEight and Victoza. Novo Nordisk employs 45,000 globally and markets its products in 180 countries. In 2019 Novo Nordisk produced a net income of £4,381,893.

Sanofi – representing 4.05% of the fund – is a  is a French multinational healthcare company headquartered in Paris. Originally, the corporation was established in 1973 and merged with Synthélabo in 1999 to form Sanofi-Synthélabo. In 2004, Sanofi-Synthélabo merged with Aventis and renamed to Sanofi-Aventis, which were each the product of several previous mergers. It changed its name back to Sanofi in May 2011. With over 99,000 employees worldwide, in 2020 produced a net income of 12.35 billion Euros.

Volvo – representing 3.69% of the fund- is a name we are all familiar with. Volvo established in 1915 as a ball baring manufacturer is now one of the largest producer and distributors of cars, trucks, busses, and construction equipment. In 1999 Volvo sold of the Volvo car manufacturing side of the business to the Ford Motor Company. Headquartered in Gothenburg Sweden Volvo employs 95,850 people worldwide and produced a total net income of 33.243billion Swedish Krona.