Quality Shares Portfolio

The Quality Shares Portfolio, managed by Charlie Huggins and exclusively available through Wealth Club, is a portfolio specifically designed for people who are genuinely interested in investing.

It's a portfolio of 15-20 global businesses chosen by Charlie for their resilience, financial strength and pricing power – see examples.

It is profoundly different from any other investment you might hold in two key respects. The first is the level of information, insight and transparency it provides (you can see an example investor update here). The second is in the investing approach itself – see detailed investment philosophy.

The minimum investment is normally £10,000 and you can apply online through:

• an ISA (Individual Savings Account) – subscriptions and transfers
• a SIPP (Self Invested Personal Pension) – subscriptions (minimum investment £8,000) and transfers
• a GIA (General Investment Account) – subscriptions only

Please note: as the portfolio invests in equities, it should be considered high risk and held for the long term.

The Quality Shares Portfolio in a nutshell – from Portfolio Manager Charlie Huggins

The Quality Shares Portfolio invests in a small number of companies I consider exceptional (you can read in detail what I mean by that), with my own money invested alongside yours. 

I have followed and admired these companies for years. They’re the type of businesses where you can bury the share certificate in a drawer, dig it out 10 years later and, hopefully, find the profits and cash flows are materially higher. 

Once you invest, you can see the full list of all companies with notes on why they are there – to get a flavour of what to expect, you can see five examples here. 

Read more:

What makes the Quality Shares Portfolio different?

The Quality Shares Portfolio is profoundly different from any other investment you might hold in two key respects. 

1. Unparalleled level of information, insight and transparency  

The Quality Shares Portfolio is designed for investors who are genuinely interested in companies and markets and are seeking investing ideas and insights. 

When you invest, I tell you what I am doing with your money and why. I offer my unvarnished views on companies and markets. I share investment ideas and principles that you can apply to the rest of your portfolio.

No other investment service offers this. Most funds give you a list of the top 10 holdings, alongside a monthly factsheet with little, if any, commentary. You rarely know detailed reasons behind the manager’s decisions, or why the portfolio is performing as it is. And you hardly ever get insights that can be applied more widely.

When you invest in the Quality Shares Portfolio, you gain access to an ‘Investor zone’. Here you can see a full list of every holding, with explanations on why I own it and how it scores against four crucial criteria in my investing checklist.

In addition, every month, you receive an update on the portfolio. These updates are detailed (several pages) and cover my views on the portfolio, companies, market developments and other timely topics – like inflation and artificial intelligence. 

You can see a sample here, with snippets from past investor updates. 

2. A distinct investment approach

The investment industry is notoriously short-term. The Quality Shares Portfolio adopts a patient, long-term approach. Most funds are excessively diversified, crowd into the same names and are subject to various constraints. This portfolio currently invests in just 15 holdings and can go anywhere in search of the best opportunities. 

This could complement an existing investment portfolio. The key differences are summarised below:

Where is your money invested?

The Quality Shares Portfolio currently invests in 15 companies. 

All are highly established industry leaders providing critical goods and services, with market capitalisations ranging from several billion dollars to over a trillion. 

Market capitalisation breakdown by number of companies

For more on how I choose companies – see my investment philosophy.

Six are FTSE 100 companies – but generate most of their sales overseas; seven are listed in the US; one in Canada and one in the Netherlands. 

The portfolio provides a good spread of sectors, as you can see below. Importantly, each company is well diversified in its own right – for example, Roper Technologies is home to around 30 separately managed businesses.

Portfolio breakdown by sector

What are the charges?

There is no initial charge when you invest, and dealing fees of just 0.1%. An annual custody charge of 0.25% and an annual management charge of 1% apply. If you invest via the Wealth Club SIPP, there is also an annual charge of £75 plus VAT. You can read more about the charges in the Schedule of Charges (part of our Terms and Conditions) and in the Quality Shares Portfolio Factsheet. 

Charlie has been managing money professionally since 2016. This includes a five-year track record, as lead manager of the HL Select UK Growth Shares Fund from launch (1 December 2016) to his departure. Over that period it was one of the UK’s best-performing funds, ranking 26th out of 209 funds in the sector, although please remember past performance isn't a guide to future returns.

After joining Wealth Club in 2022, Charlie launched the Quality Shares Portfolio in March 2023. The chart below shows his entire performance track record, incorporating three distinct periods:

• 01/12/2016 – 01/12/2021: HL Select UK Growth Shares versus IA UK All Companies sector
• 02/12/2021 – 22/03/2023: A transition period (illustrated by a flat line)
• 23/03/2023 – 31/03/2024: Quality Shares Portfolio versus IA Global sector (updated quarterly)

Charlie Huggins: Career track record (%)

Read more:

Wealth Club aims to make it easier for experienced investors to find information on – and apply for – investments. You should base your investment decision on the offer documents and ensure you have read and fully understand them before investing. The information on this webpage is a marketing communication. It is not advice or a personal or research recommendation to buy any of the investments mentioned, nor does it include any opinion as to the present or future value or price of these investments. It does not satisfy legal requirements promoting investment research independence and is thus not subject to prohibitions on dealing ahead of its dissemination.