Fund Manager Comments: Fundsmith 2022 AGM Notes

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A version of this was also published on my Twitter account.

Introduction: Below are my notes from Fundsmith’s (virtual) 2022 AGM, which consists of a presentation by CEO Terry Smith and Head of Research Julian Robins, followed by a Q&A. The presentation covered performance, strategy and ESG, while the Q&A touched on Russia/Ukraine, inflation and interest rates. There were also individual comments on companies such as Facebook, Unilever and Amazon. (Where available, I have linked each company mentioned to a list of my published research.)

Performance

1/ Fundsmith underperformed slightly in 2022. However, the team have never expected to outperform in every reporting period and every type of market conditions, instead only expecting to outperform the market "over the longer term".

2/ The team also prefers to look at two-year returns for the current period, because COVID-19 has meant that companies tend to do much better or much worse in 2021 than the year before. On a two-year basis, Fundsmi…