WCM Investment Management | Natixis Investment Managers

WCM Investment Management is a global growth equity specialist that focuses on competitive advantages and corporate culture to seek long-term excess returns, while trying to mitigate downside risk. The firm provides services for a diverse client base including individual investors, corporations, public and private funds, Taft-Hartley plans, foundations, and endowments.

WCM’s primary goal is to generate long-term, sustainable excess returns for clients through a culture of innovation, close alignment of employee incentives, and a flat power structure that fosters meritocracy and debate. Believing attractive returns can only be achieved by structuring portfolios distinct from the market indices, WCM’s portfolios are focused on their best ideas.

Our investment experience has shown time and again that success stories are underpinned by intentional cultures focused around simple, achievable ends.”

– Paul Black, President and CEO, WCM Investment Management

Founded

1976

Headquartered

Laguna Beach, CA, USA

Expertise

Actively managed international and global growth equity investments

AUM

USD 91B as of June 30, 2024

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Approach

WCM uses a bottom-up investment approach that seeks to identify companies with attractive fundamentals, such as low, or no debt, rising returns on invested capital, and reasonably predictable, free cash-flow generation. The team requires each prospective company to possess a durable and improving competitive advantage or “economic moat.” When valuing a company, they believe historical evidence shows a growing economic moat to be far more important to a valuation than an absolutely, wide economic moat. For this reason, the team also analyzes the “trajectory” of a company’s competitive advantage. They believe this same concept is equally valuable when selling holdings and, if a company is no longer improving its competitive advantage, it should be sold. Corporate culture is also believed to be important to the long-term success of any enterprise. Therefore, when evaluating companies, the team works to understand its “DNA” and assesses the strength, quality, and trustworthiness of management. They look for industry-leading companies led by visionary management teams with sound business strategies.

Moats

Businesses with durable and growing competitive advantages.

Culture

Great people, empowered and engaged, define success.

Tailwinds

Businesses benefiting from long-lasting global trends

Focused

Only best ideas that seek to outperform with controlled risk

Valuation

Owning great growth companies at fair prices contributes to margin of safety

Portfolio Construction Process

WCM’s equity research team believes that to outperform a benchmark, the portfolio must be meaningfully different from that benchmark. WCM’s requirement for simple-to-understand, high-quality, consistently profitable companies tend to drive them into traditional growth sectors (e.g., technology, health care, and consumer companies.) By ending up overweighted to these sectors, where they believe true growth resides, their portfolios are meaningfully different from the benchmark.

Funds

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Assets under management (“AUM”) as of June 30, 2024. AUM, as reported, may include notional assets, assets serviced, gross assets, assets of minority-owned affiliated entities and other types of non-regulatory AUM managed or serviced by firms affiliated with Natixis Investment Managers.

Natixis Investment Managers, LLC and WCM Investment Management are affiliated.

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