J Stern's world stars global equity fund launches in the US

J. Stern & Co, the London-based investment partnership, is making its World Stars Global Equity strategy available to North American investors as a limited partnership fund.

The launch follows J. Stern & Co.’s opening of a New York office in March last year and comes in response to the strong investor interest shown in its flagship concentrated global equity strategy.

The J. Stern & Co. World Stars Global Equity Fund, LP (the ‘LP’) has been seeded with $325m by the Stern family and a group of US institutional investors. The LP follows the "same clear, simple, and transparent" principles which sit at the heart of its business, the firm said.

The strategy, which has more than $1.3bn in assets under management, invests in a concentrated portfolio of 20-30 investments in leading global companies that have strong and sustainable competitive positions and a long runway of growth.

It is unconstrained and benchmark agnostic, with a high active share and low turnover, in line with its long-term investment approach. The LP provides daily liquidity and is fully ERISA-compliant. It does not short positions or use leverage.

Christopher Rossbach, CIO and portfolio manager, and Katerina Kosmopoulou, deputy portfolio manager, lead an experienced and diverse team that has worked together for ten years.

The team selects companies based on its own research, focusing on quality and the ability to generate compounding returns.

For J. Stern & Co., quality is a gating condition; this means it invests in companies that are global leaders with strong and sustainable competitive positions, in structurally attractive and growing markets, with pricing power and economies of scale, management teams that have strong records of value creation, and robust balance sheets to weather financial adversity.

Jérôme Stern, managing partner of J. Stern & Co., said: “We are pleased to launch the World Stars Global Equity strategy in a limited partnership fund. It represents the core approach with which the Stern family has managed most of its financial assets for more than 80 years – founded on Maurice Stern’s proven investment principles of investing for the long term, based on proprietary research and a focus on quality.”

Christian Picot, principal at New York-based J. Stern & Co. LLC, said: “Following strong interest from investors, we are pleased to make the World Stars Global Equity strategy accessible to qualified North American investors and ERISA plans in a simple partnership fund format.”

The general partner has selected US Bank NA as its Custodian, Dechert LLP as its legal advisor, Grant Thornton LLP as its auditor, and the NAV Fund Administration Group as its administrator.