BMC International (Ex US) April 2026

The strongest contributors to performance were ABB ltd, TSMC, Pepco Group and Kandenko. Reporting season this month has been very favourable for us with a number of companies upgrading earnings and beating estimates.

We were blessed to have the following companies deliver super strong earnings reports, with major profit upgrades from Kyoto Financial, ABB, Canon marketing, Pepco, Kandenko and Kyocera. 

Additionally, news has surfaced regarding Airtel Africa potentially listing their subsidiary Mobile Money at a whopping $10bn valuation (vs. 17bn for the total company) in Q2-26. We look forward to updating you on further developments here. 

The weakest developments during the month were Open House, GMO payment gateway and Hikari Tsushin. All traded slightly down on no news. Open House in particular has had a spectacular run recently so reasonable to expect some profit taking. 

It is important to remember that the Japanese Yen weakness has impacted us significantly. We have roughly 2,3x the exposure in JPY vs. our benchmark. The Yen, since inception has weakened 8% which has impacted our returns by ~270bps. This has been painful, however the Japanese Central bank typical step in and intervene at JPYUSD 160 which should mean this issue should not continue. 

Key market events and trends

MSCI World rose 9% in USD during April, its best monthly return since November 2022. The conflict in the Middle East contributed to a moderate pick-up in the oil price, but the bond and equity markets largely chose to ignore the geopolitical tumult. 

Higher energy costs are likely to have an impact on inflation, burden economic activity, and weaken the already fragile consumer sentiment. Regardless, the markets chose to focus elsewhere. Consumers hold record-large savings that can be channeled to some extent into the equity markets.

The build-up of AI infrastructure continues apace and is accelerating, with semiconductors still the primary beneficiary of this expansion phase. In 2022, industry analysts predicted that the semiconductor market would reach annual revenues of USD 1,000bn by 2030. It now appears this level will be reached this year, with continued strong growth in 2027 before a slower pace is expected in 2028.

In Europe, Stoxx 600 companies saw profit growth of 7%, with cyclical consumption proving the most prominent factor. The automotive sector has recovered from its weak 2025, although this was cyclical rather than structural. European industry—to which our fund has good exposure—is seeing a more sustainable growth trend.

Portfolio changes during the month

We added three new holdings to the fund during the month. 

Icon PLC
ICLR is a high quality CRO or Clinical Research Organisation based in Dublin, Ireland. It is the number 2 player in a highly attractive clinical outsourcing market. Icon recently has had to restatement their revenue and backlog by about 1%, a totally inconsequential amount. However this caused the share price to decline from ~$180 to around $100, while the forward indicators of their business have meaningfully improved. Icon announced to the market that the restatement is a small issue and will be shortly fixed, which rallied the share price 14% on the day. We see a return to $180 as a highly achievable outcome in the next year. 

Millicom
Many Swedish readers will be familiar with Millicom, the South American focused Telco which has undergone an incredible turnaround. After Xavier Niel (French Billionaire and entrepreneur) took a major stake in the Telco, the company has gone from generating almost no Free Cash flow to almost $1bn USD. An incredible result and we believe just the first innings of his incredible operational improvement. 

SK Hynix
Many readers will be familiar with this South Korean name given the current Memory situation and supply/demand/pricing dynamics. As supply shortages for their memory chips bite, there has been enormous increases in memory prices which has lead to incredible profitability improvements at SK Hynix. We believe this dynamic will continue. 

Fund positioning

Overall, the funds holdings continue to execute incredibly well and we are very happy with the fundamental performance of these holdings. A massive way of profit upgrades, guidance upgrades and aggressive buybacks has been very positive for our returns. We believe, should we see some Japanese Yen stability, a lot more of this underlying performance will translate into returns. 

*MSCI ACWI ex USA Net Total Return USD Index in EUR