Speaker 0:
given your positive outlook at the end of last year, How's healthcare reacted to the ongoing volatility at the beginning of this year?

Speaker 1:
Well, yeah, it's certainly been a very interesting first quarter. If you look at January and February, the market was very much risk gone, and that may be driven by this idea that we may not have a sort of recession or it may be a soft Laing. And the areas of the market that did quite well were things like consumer discretionary information technology and more defensive areas like

Speaker 1:
health care and utility struggled. But then we had a quite a dramatic shift in March and a reversal, and that may well have been driven by the potential banking crisis. But certainly healthcare started to to to really outperform and that's continued in recent weeks. And we certainly hope that if we have a robust queue on earnings season, then that relative out is, you know, may be able to continue and and

Speaker 0:
looking ahead, Um, I put a damper on it. But

Speaker 0:
if healthcare continues its habit of underperforming during times of economic growth, what are your views on the sector?

Speaker 1:
Well, look, I mean there's a tug of war at the moment, isn't there? There's this idea that actually tightening credit conditions might lead to slowing economic growth, which is a scenario that is very, very positive for health care.

Speaker 1:
But also there's some of the view that actually the world's not that bad, a bit more optimistic, and that's may be driven by low levels of unemployment and higher levels of, you know, consumer optimism. But regardless, you know, you've got to remember healthcare is very, very diverse. And so

Speaker 1:
in any given economic or regulatory or even political climate, we should be able to find some interesting ideas. And actually, we're really, really trying to focus on the longer term growth opportunities and really focus on some of the key themes that we've been trying to expose ourselves to and also our investors to. And

Speaker 1:
hopefully we'll touch on those later in the conversation.

Speaker 0:
Are you seeing greater utilisation of of healthcare services products given Well, hopefully covid is is behind us. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 1:
and that's a really good question. I mean, if you look at some of the public commentary from the incumbents, then we would have to say it looks like that's the case and by incumbents. I'm talking about hospitals and medical device companies, and they certainly feel they're seeing a pick up in utilisation.

Speaker 1:
And that's driven by two things. One, consumers and patients re re engaging with the health care system. But also, you know, the staffing challenges that we experience through covid seem to be easing, and they're just becoming a lot more dynamic and how they're using their staff to treat the patients. So we do think it's picking up, and we do think that hopefully it's going to be a durable trend as well

Speaker 0:
and kind of the obvious. So what

Speaker 0:
question? What does that mean for you as an investor? What areas are you looking at as a result?

Speaker 1:
Well, I touched on it earlier in the conversation. One of the themes we're looking at is utilisation. We're also looking at, you know, delivery disruption, this idea that you can treat a patient not in a hospital, but in other areas, and we can expose our investors to that.

Speaker 1:
So that might be through a medical device company, and they literally provide the devices and the capital equipment for the patients. But actually It could also be the facilities, the hospitals, the surgery day centres who receive the patients and treat the patients as well. So there are multiple areas within the healthcare ecosystem where hopefully we can expose the portfolio and also expose investors to that increase in utilisation.

Speaker 0:
You and the team recently have talked about the increase in outflows from US Healthcare ETF s. Is that a positive sign for actively managed funds or a negative sign for the sector overall?

Speaker 1:
Yeah. No, that that's a fair point. I mean, some people watching this might think that's quite a myopic view, but we don't. You know, we think it's quite an interesting contrarian indicator in the short term, but one has to remember, You know, we're very much focused on the long term, durable growth drivers of our industry.

Speaker 1:
And so it's really a potentially interesting observation in terms of timing, but doesn't really affect how we think about our industry in the long term. Without

Speaker 0:
doubt, there are still challenges out there. What is it about the healthcare sector as a whole, or is it the sub sectors within it that makes you still so positive?

Speaker 1:
Well, if you look at some of the written commentary we've put out. We're really focused on several things. The first one is the idea that utilisation is picking up, and we asked to see evidence that that is the case, so that gives us some comfort.

Speaker 1:
We do also continue to believe that health care is being disruptive. And if you can provide solutions, that is also an opportunity, we think, to be able to deliver durable growth. But also the valuations are supportive. And then finally, the political backdrop is much better now, we think, than it was maybe 12 months ago. So you add all those ingredients together and we still believe that healthcare is an attractive place to invest.