Robeco launches global industrial innovation fund

Fund manager Robeco has launched a global industrial innovation equities fund, which will invest in four secular growth trends of robotics, digital manufacturing, energy transition and cyber security.

The fund will use the MSCI World All Countries index as a reference, but Robeco said it will be benchmark agnostic, with companies selected on their exposure to the selected trends, fundamental analysis and integrated sustainability and risk analysis. It will have a highly concentrated portfolio of 40 to 60 stocks and will be managed by the Robeco Trends investing team, with Marco van Lent as lead portfolio manager.

Henk Grootveld, commented: “In our trends investing team we believe that the work will change substantially in the decades to come and this fund has been developed to capitalise on the production side of the trends we see.” Grootveld added that the team believes that robots will replace most of the heavy-duty work still done by humans and artificial intelligence will boost white-collar worker productivity. Cheaper renewable energy will fuel more local production and in a digital world, the best possible cyber security will be needed. The fund will be domiciled in Luxembourg and available to retail investors and wholesale distributors.