This factsheet for Baillie Gifford's UK Equity Core Growth fund reports a rough six months: the fund gained 2.1% while the FTSE All-Share index rose 7.2%, as its focus on quality growth stocks lagged the broader market. The report gives no explicit market outlook, but the strategy is clearly to hold high-quality UK companies for the long term. Top holdings include AstraZeneca (largest position, a recent drag on returns), HSBC (second-largest, a bank that has held up relatively well), and Standard Chartered (third-largest, another bank). It does not disclose recent buying or selling.
Baillie Gifford UK Equity Core Growth Fund is an actively managed UK equity fund focused on high-quality growth stocks, aiming to outperform the FTSE All-Share Index over rolling five-year periods. As of June 30, 2026, the fund had assets of £172.95m, held 56 stocks, with an active share of 70% and
For the 6 months ended 30 June 2026: Fund Class B -Acc returned 2.1%, significantly lagging the FTSE All-Share Index's 7.2% by 5.1 percentage points; the 1-year return was 9.4% versus 21.9%, behind by 12.5 percentage points. The fund underperformed both the index and the IA sector average across all periods.
| Basis | 6 months | 1 year | 3 years (annualised) | 5 years (annualised) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fund Class B -Acc (%) | 2.1 | 9.4 | 10.2 | 4.6 |
| FTSE All-Share Index (%) | 7.2 | 21.9 | 15.2 | 10.9 |
| IA UK All Companies Sector Average (%) | 5.2 | 12.7 | 11.3 | 6.0 |
| Fund ranking in IA sector | 164/205 | 135/205 | 123/197 | 122/191 |
Annual discrete performance also lagged across the board; in the most recent year (2025/06–2026/06) the fund returned 9.4% versus 21.9% for the index.
| Year ended 30 June | 30/06/21–30/06/22 | 30/06/22–30/06/23 | 30/06/23–30/06/24 | 30/06/24–30/06/25 | 30/06/25–30/06/26 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fund Class B -Acc (%) | -15.0 | 10.1 | 9.7 | 11.5 | 9.4 |
| FTSE All-Share Index (%) | 1.6 | 7.9 | 13.0 | 11.2 | 21.9 |
| IA Sector Average (%) | -8.5 | 6.2 | 12.6 | 8.7 | 12.7 |
The top ten holdings together account for 41.0% of fund assets. At the sector level, the fund is significantly overweight Industrials (+10.1%), Consumer Discretionary (+7.1%) and Technology (+4.7%), and underweight Financials (-3.7%). The report does not disclose the direction of purchases and sales during the period.
Top ten holdings:
| Stock | % of fund assets |
|---|---|
| AstraZeneca | 6.5 |
| HSBC | 5.3 |
| Standard Chartered | 5.2 |
| Rio Tinto | 5.1 |
| Prudential | 3.7 |
| Marks & Spencer | 3.6 |
| Legal & General | 3.2 |
| Unilever | 2.8 |
| Bunzl | 2.8 |
| Howden Joinery | 2.8 |
Sector allocation (fund vs FTSE All-Share):
| Sector | Fund (%) | Index (%) | Difference (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Financials | 26.5 | 30.2 | -3.7 |
| Industrials | 22.4 | 12.2 | 10.1 |
| Consumer Discretionary | 13.8 | 6.7 | 7.1 |
| Consumer Staples | 10.3 | 12.8 | -2.5 |
| Health Care | 9.6 | 12.1 | -2.4 |
| Technology | 7.0 | 2.3 | 4.7 |
| Basic Materials | 5.1 | 7.4 | -2.3 |
| Real Estate | 4.3 | 2.1 | 2.2 |
| Utilities | 1.6 | 4.5 | -2.9 |
| Telecommunications | 0.4 | 1.2 | -0.7 |
| Cash | -1.0 | 0.0 | -1.0 |
The report notes that the cash balance of -1.0% reflects timing differences from shareholder flows and unsettled trades, and does not necessarily represent a bank overdraft.
Fund size £172.95m, holding 56 stocks (guidance range 45–65), active share 70%, annual turnover 16%, OCF 0.44%, historical yield 2.18%.
The following is an incremental analysis of the continuation, focusing on the newly added global compliance framework and risk disclosure logic, without repeating the analytical dimensions already covered above.
The first three risk warnings in the follow-up—custody risk, single-market risk, and share-price volatility risk—may appear routine, but together they form a progressive risk transmission chain:
| Disclosure Tier | Risk Type | Trigger Mechanism | Measurement Dimension | Mitigation Approach |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | Custody/counterparty risk | Custodian bankruptcy or negligence | Credit rating, degree of asset segregation | Independent custodian, client asset segregation |
| Tier 2 | Market concentration risk | Systemic shock in a single market | Country exposure share, industry concentration | Diversified holdings, industry caps |
| Tier 3 | Pricing volatility risk | Underlying asset price movements + pricing basis deviation | Tracking error, NAV deviation | Fair value pricing, periodic valuation review |
It should be particularly noted that custody risk is fundamentally different in legal nature from the latter two — it is a contractual claim risk arising from the investor's custody agreement, whereas the latter two are market risks. Placing custody risk first suggests that the fund's legal team assigns the highest warning priority to operational/counterparty risk; this ordering is highly consistent with the disclosure requirements for "Custody Arrangements" under the UK FCA's UCITS regulatory framework.
More subtle is the third point—"the basis on which the Fund is priced" (the pricing basis). This is not merely a market volatility issue; it reveals the core vulnerability of actively managed funds: valuation deviation in less-liquid holdings. As a typical representative of the long-term growth style, Baillie Gifford's portfolio may contain unlisted or low-liquidity assets, meaning that minor changes to the "pricing basis" can produce significant book-value fluctuations. This disclosure is in effect a legal caution regarding valuation model risk (rather than pure market price risk).
This date reveals the temporal and frequency logic of the fund's reporting cycle:
This timestamp echoes the five-country regulatory statements appearing at the bottom of the follow-up—meaning that, after June 30, 2026 and before official external release, the Factsheet underwent cross-border compliance review to ensure that the same risk disclosures hold simultaneously under the legal frameworks of Chile, Peru, Mexico, Israel, and Colombia.
The follow-up's greatest added value lies in its cross-border regulatory compliance statements. Comparing the compliance logic of the five jurisdictions:
| Country | Regulator | Registration Status | Investor Restriction | Legal Basis | Prohibited Conduct |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Israel | ISA | Not registered | Dual qualification of "mature investor" + "eligible client" only | First Schedule of the Securities Law (1968); First Schedule of the Investment Advice Law | Active solicitation of investors who do not meet both qualifications |
| Colombia | SFC | Not registered in the registry | Investors bear their own compliance responsibility | Foreign securities registration exemption provisions | Public offering / exchange trading |
| Chile | CMF | Not registered (locally or foreign) | Private offering only | General Rule NCG No. 336 | No public offering before registration |
| Peru | SMV | Not registered | Institutional investors only | Exemption regime for public registration in the capital markets | Participation by non-institutional investors |
| Mexico | CNBV | Not registered | Qualified and institutional investors only | Article 8 private placement exemption under the Securities Market Law | Public offering / public issuance |
The commonalities across these models can be summarized as:
1. The prevailing legal rationale of "non-registration + private placement exemption" — all five countries rely on the logic that "non-registration does not prohibit private placement," rather than "public offering is permitted after specially approved registration"
2. Investor scope narrows layer by layer — Israel's dual-qualification standard is the strictest (requiring simultaneous satisfaction of both conditions set out in law), Mexico and Peru sit in the middle (limited to qualified/institutional investors), and Chile's NCG 336 offers a more flexible private placement channel
3. Exoneration preference: almost all of the country statements unilaterally shift compliance obligations to investors—the phrase in the Colombia statement, "the investor acknowledges...is the sole liable party," is particularly typical, a classic design in cross-border distribution for transferring regulatory costs to the buyer
The follow-up reveals a disclosure architecture of "core document + regional annexes":
```mermaid
graph LR
A[Core Factsheet] --> B[Global universal risk disclosures]
A --> C[KIID/Prospectus guidance]
A --> D[Regional compliance annexes]
D --> D1[Israel: dual qualification]
D --> D2[Colombia: self-compliance]
D --> D3[Chile: NCG 336 private placement]
D --> D4[Peru: institutional-only]
D --> D5[Mexico: Article 8 exemption]
```
The elegance of this architecture lies in the fact that core risk disclosures remain consistent (globally universal), while legal applicability statements are routed by country, preventing country-specific differences from diluting the force of the core warnings. It also reflects Baillie Gifford's strategic focus on the Middle East and Latin American markets—had it been cultivating only the U.S. and European markets, there would be no need to allocate separate legal-review resources for these five countries.
The contact channels shown at the end of the follow-up also merit interpretation:
| Channel | Target Group | Contact Method | Implied Service Positioning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intermediary Enquiries | Intermediaries/distribution platforms | Toll-free 0800 | Direct-to-retail, service-oriented |
| Institutional Enquiries | Institutional investors | Standard phone + email | High-net-worth customization |
The unremarkable notice "Your call may be recorded for training or monitoring purposes" is in fact the legal fulfillment of the call-recording retention obligation imposed by the FCA for telephone marketing and customer service. Moreover, the two distinct contact entry points (retail intermediaries vs. institutions) further reinforce the operational realization of the legal statement in the follow-up concerning "institution-only access"—channel segmentation and compliance boundaries mutually corroborate each other at the operational level.
The essence of the follow-up document is to upgrade a single marketing document into a multi-functional compliance document that meets regulatory requirements across multiple jurisdictions. The risk disclosure section centers on three core vulnerabilities—custody, concentration, and valuation pricing—while the five-country compliance declarations employ a unified model of "not registered + private placement exemption + investors bear their own responsibility," enabling the fund to reach institutional capital in emerging markets at extremely low regulatory cost. The delicate balance between the document's compliance rigor and its marketing traces precisely reflects Baillie Gifford's positioning with institutional clients as its core audience—the more detailed the legal disclaimers, the higher the investor threshold, but the greater the compliance certainty.