Industry dynamics

Baillie Gifford, which holds Nio, says 'don't give up on China'

Publishtime:1970-01-01 08:00:00 Views:33

Nio is one of the top 10 holdings of Baillie Gifford's Scottish Mortgage.

China's consolidation of some sectors over the past few months has sparked caution among many investors. But in the view of Baillie Gifford, a leading Scottish investment firm, investors need not overreact.

In an interview with the Financial Times on Friday, James Anderson, a partner at the firm, said China's ability to create world-leading technology companies will outlast the recent crackdowns.

"I don't think it's right to give up on China," Anderson said, adding "I don't think the golden goose has been killed off at all . . . from the point of view of building companies."

Anderson, co-manager of Baillie Gifford's £21.2 billion Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, was an early investor in Tesla and Amazon, and also owns shares of many Chinese companies.

Among Scottish Mortgage's top 10 long positions are three companies - Tencent, Meituan and Nio - which account for 4.1 percent, 2.9 percent and 2.8 percent of the holdings respectively.

"We really haven't done much portfolio repositioning over the summer," said Anderson, according to the Financial Times. "And I'm not sure in any sense I regret that," he said.

On July 2, China's cybersecurity office said in an announcement that it was implementing a cybersecurity review of Didi to prevent national data security risks, safeguard national security and protect the public interest.

Since then, several industries in China have seen intensive consolidation, triggering pessimism among many investors about Chinese companies.

But Edison Yu's team at Deutsche Bank said at the time that the Didi debacle and the latest reforms showed that China EV stocks could be one of the best relative safe-havens.

That does seem to be the case for China's EV stocks since then, and while they too have been affected by negative investor sentiment, they have been hit far less than education stocks and the giants including Alibaba.

In particular, shares of Nio and Xpeng Motors have all rallied about 30 percent in the past month.