Asset Manager Overview
BNP Paribas Asset Management (AM) is a global asset management business and one of Europe's largest. The company's current scale and reach was boosted in July 2025 when AXA Investment Managers (IM) joined BNP Paribas Group. Following the merger of AXA IM and BNP Paribas AM Europe and their respective holding companies on 31st December 2025, the combined company now operates under the BNP Paribas name.
BNP Paribas AM has a broad range of capabilities spanning equities, fixed income, multi-asset, Real Estate, Alternative Credit, Infrastructure, Private Equity as well as a broad ETF platform offering active and passive strategies. As at the end of September 2025 the firm had approximately €1.6 trillion in assets under management.
Fund Manager/Team Overview
This fund has been managed by Chris St John since its launch in March 2011. Mr St John is part of a highly collegiate team of UK equity fund managers and analysts, a group he has been a member of for over ten years. Historically, he worked particularly closely with the highly accomplished fund manager Nigel Thomas. Following Mr Thomas's retirement at the end of 2018, Mr St John assumed responsibility for the AXA Framlington UK Select Opportunities fund (and was subsequently appointed deputy to Nigel Yates in December 2023). He has also been the lead manager of the multi‑cap‑focused, offshore‑based AXA WF Framlington UK fund since its launch in March 2016.
Investment Philosophy & Process Overview
The manager is essentially a stock picker but, together with the rest of the team, he has an appreciation of the wider economy and industrial and secular trends, using these to help guide him in the selection of companies. The team conducts proprietary analysis that is supplemented with external research. This is primarily used to validate and cross check their own work and is generally provided by independent research houses, stockbrokers and through contacts generated from conferences attended by the team's members. The types of companies sought by the manager are those considered able to grow organically, have little or no debt, pricing power and high barriers to entry. Management teams' ability to effectively allocate capital is also assessed and, as a chartered accountant, Mr St John is wholly comfortable with analysing company balance sheets and other financial statements. In addition, interaction with company management is considered an important part of the decision making process. Although naturally a growth investor, the manager is not prepared to overpay for stocks and looks at each company's valuation relative to his growth projections for the business, its ability to generate cashflow, grow dividends and return on capital. Valuation measures against the firm's history and against that of the market tend not to be used.
The final portfolio is constructed without reference to its FTSE 250 benchmark and can, at times, look vastly different from this index. An outcome of the investment process is that the manager tends to avoid specific areas of the market including certain financials and commodity-related stocks. This could lead to periods of relative performance variability should these areas outperform. Mr St John is risk aware and uses a sensible range of self-imposed guidelines to mitigate risk as much as possible. These include holding a maximum of 4% in any one company and investing in the region of 50-80 companies to ensure a suitable level of diversification. There is scope to invest outside of the benchmark, but the fund must have a minimum exposure of 70% to the index at all times. Up to 15% can be held in larger FTSE 100 companies.
Portfolio activity tends to be quite low with turnover in the region of 30-35% p.a. equating to an average holding period of three to five years. The sale of a stock is considered following a strong period of relative outperformance, an unexplained deterioration of profitability or cash generation, evidence of inconsistent decision making by company management or when a more compelling idea is uncovered.
The investment universe of all BNP Paribas funds is subject to negative screens that exclude companies strongly exposed to controversial weapons, palm oil, coal and soft commodities, activities the group considers to be unethical or controversial.