“Investing with Founders and Owners is not a fad, a theme or a clever marketing ploy – it’s simply the best way I have found to grow wealth in an absolute or relative sense.”
Joe Dowling, Fund manager
Invesco Global Founders & Owners Fund
The Invesco Global Founders & Owners Fund invests in a concentrated portfolio of holdings where founders or significant owners actively manage or govern companies.
Investing with aligned leadership
Investing in founder-owner companies means partnering with leaders who have real skin in the game. Their significant ownership stakes align incentives, driving disciplined cost control, long-term value creation, and strategic boldness. Backed by strong historical performance and broad sector diversification, these businesses offer a compelling edge for global equity portfolios. Of course, not every founder or owner is a winner. That’s why we focus on partnering with the ones who have the mindset, track record, and opportunity to grow our capital over the long haul, especially when their shares are trading at compelling prices.
Aligned incentives
Founder-owners invest heavily in their firms, ensuring strong alignment with shareholder interests and long-term value.
Long-term vision
Founders prioritize sustainable growth and bold innovation over short-term results, driving lasting market leadership.
Strong return potential
Historical studies indicate founder-led and owner-controlled companies have often delivered stronger long-term results.
Why this fund?
The fund’s core investment philosophy centers on the belief that companies led by founders and owners tend to exhibit superior business qualities and long-term value creation potential. The premise: people take more care of things that they own, and company management teams are no different. We believe partnering with founders and owners makes it possible to achieve exceptional investment outcomes.
The value-add of the portfolio is articulated through a rigorous investment process that combines deep fundamental research with a disciplined evaluation of risk and return. Key elements include:
Idea generation: Ownership data is hard to come by. Different share classes, stale information and bizarrely named holding companies make alignment data extremely difficult to collect. You have to do much of it by hand. The investment team screens a broad universe, identifying ca. 125 overlaps that fit the fund’s criteria, focusing on businesses with exceptional founders or owners.
Evaluation and approval: Each idea is analysed to confirm why the business and owner stand out. Financial models are built in-house and calculate an expected IRR, followed by rigorous peer review to select top candidates.
Portfolio construction: Based on model IRRs, the portfolio includes 25–35 holdings, each capped at 10% to maintain diversification and reduce correlation.
Risk management is embedded throughout the investment process. At the stock level we do deep research to build a strong understanding of the company’s risk/reward profile. At the portfolio level, correlation and macro level risks are analysed and considered to ensure the portfolio is sufficiently diversified to work across a variety of investment conditions. Research and models are updated regularly – usually every quarter or whenever there is an earnings release – ensuring our thesis remains intact.
Portfolio positioning is carefully managed to balance growth opportunities with risk controls. The aim is to build a diverse portfolio of relatively uncorrelated holdings, leveraging the best ideas identified through the evaluation process. The use of a stock comparison sheet and model IRRs helps in selecting holdings that complement each other and optimize overall portfolio performance.
Access the Invesco Global Founders & Owners Fund product page to view KIDs/KIIDs and factsheets. The investment concerns the acquisition of units in an actively managed fund and not in a given underlying asset.
Fund manager
Joe Dowling manages the fund’s stock selection. He has 12 years of investment experience and is part of the Henley-based Global Equities team, which brings together different yet complementary skills. The experience of its members is well-suited to managing active, bottom-up portfolios.
FAQs
Founder or owner-led companies often outperform the market because the management has significant "skin in the game." This alignment of interests means founders treat shareholder money as their own, focus on long-term growth rather than short-term gains, and are more cost-conscious and cash-efficient. Empirical evidence shows founder-led companies outperform non-founder-led peers over time.
"Skin in the game" refers to founders or owners having a substantial personal financial stake in the company, typically owning at least 5% of the company or having $100 million invested. This ensures their incentives are aligned with shareholders, reducing principal-agent problems and encouraging prudent capital allocation.
Founders and owners think long-term, often prioritizing sustainable growth over short-term remuneration. They can be more courageous and innovative, willing to make bold decisions that lead to material outperformance. Examples include Jeff Bezos investing early in cloud computing and Michael O'Leary making strategic moves during crises.
Investors evaluate founders on three key criteria:
Talent: Operational and capital allocation track record.
Ethics: Treatment of minority shareholders and governance standards.
Alignment: Level of ownership and compensation structure.
This assessment involves deep research including filings, interviews, and external sources.
Multiple studies from reputable sources (Bain & Harvard Business Review, PWC/UBS, Journal of Finance, UBS) show that founder-led, billionaire-controlled, CEO-owned, and family-owned companies consistently outperform market benchmarks by significant margins over extended periods.
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