Brunner (BUT)

Brunner (BUT) aims to provide investors with an all-weather Portfolio, that is, one capable of delivering consistent returns across different market environments. For that purpose, the management team, consisting of Julian Bishop, James Ashworth, Christian Schneider, and Simon Gergel, aims to build a well-diversified portfolio, balancing the quality, growth, and value factors.

Since the beginning of the year, the team has continued to trim their positions in semiconductor names such as ASML and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), which have rallied over the past 12 months, benefiting from the build-out of AI infrastructure. However, these stocks are now trading on elevated valuations, while the team believes they could be particularly sensitive to a potential slowdown in AI capex spending. In fact, the managers have grown cautious on the AI theme more broadly, and while the portfolio maintains some exposure to it, it is underweight relative to the trust’s benchmark.

That said, they have been cognisant of the threat this technology poses to many businesses. As a result, in mid 2025 the managers exited positions in a number of companies whose business models could be endangered by AI, or where they saw significant valuation risk. As the market sell-off driven by ws of AI disruption continued, in early 2026 they took advantage of the situation to selectively build new positions in companies where they believe these fears are excessive or unjustified, such as RELX and Booking Holdings. In addition, the team has continued to build exposure to companies embedded in the physical world for which the risk of AI disruption is low, including ConocoPhillips, a US company specialising in hydrocarbon exploration and production.

So far in the trust’s current financial year, BUT has paid its first two interim Dividends of 6.75p each, representing an 8% year-on-year increase. Combined with the two previous dividend instalments, this results in a 12-month yield of c. 1.7%.