An investment partnership with roots in Europe and important US links talks about its portfolio, the sectors it likes and some of the firms in play.

The "digital transformation" theme playing out in silicon chips, the progress of luxury goods giant LVMH, healthcare and life sciences sectors are among those favoured by J Stern & Co, an investment partnership, according to a recent presentation it gave in London.

Christopher Rossbach, chief investment officer, (pictured below), portfolio manager of J Stern & Co World Stars Global Equity Fund, and deputy portfolio manager, Katerina Kosmopoulou, set out their top stock picks and why stock selection and quality matters more than ever.

Christopher Rossbach

The Luxembourg-domiciled fund, whose last 10 years' performance reached a 12.7 per cent compound annual growth rate in dollars, comes under Article 8 of the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). It invests in a selection of shares in global companies with a long runway of growth over a period of five to 10 years or more.

With the era of low interest rates and very low inflation being a thing of the past, and US President Donald Trump’s import tariffs increasing market volatility, Rossbach and Kosmopoulou said stock selection is particularly important.

The fund focuses on stocks in four main areas, Rossbach said. It includes digital transformation (44.2 per cent) and the Dutch multinational ASML, a chip-making equipment manufacturer specialising in photolithography systems used to produce integrated circuits, driving innovation in global semiconductors. It also focuses on consumer goods (15.7 per cent), notably the French luxury goods company Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH), whose revenues improved in Q3 2025, with signs of a recovery in the demand for luxury goods. “We have some ultra high-quality firms. We are not invested yet in luxury goods company Hermès but we might do in the future,” Kosmpoulou said at the event.

Others in the investment industry like the luxury story. For example, Kevin Thozet, at Paris-based asset manager Carmignac invests in luxury goods company Hermès. Paris-based Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management also likes the firm, in particular the sustainable finance model of Hermès. 

Healthcare and life sciences
J Stern & Co's World Stars Global Equity Fund also covers healthcare and life sciences (15.5 per cent), including Thermo Scientific, a global life sciences company.  The fourth area the firm favours is industrial and infrastructure (24.6 per cent), which includes EATON, an American-Irish domiciled high-tech industrial, power management, electrification company.

The fund performed well in Q3 2025 driven by digital stocks. Rossbach said it is heavily exposed to artificial intelligence, with top five holdings including US tech multinationals Nvidia and Amphenol as well as Alphabet, which is delivering faster growth across Search, Youtube and Google Cloud from AI. Similarly, Amazon’s revenue growth has accelerated across ecommerce, digital advertising and cloud services from the injection of AI.  

At the event, Rossbach and Kosmopoulou also emphasised the importance of ESG integration – most of their funds are covered by Article 8 under the SFDR. “We think ESG is here to stay and have to see it as an opportunity. We do think that investing in ESG pays off,” Kosmopoulou, head of ESG, said.  

The fund is heavily exposed to the US (67 per cent), 30.5 per cent to Europe and the rest in the UK. “We are globally invested. We do see opportunities in emerging markets, with India showing incredible opportunities, but we do not have a single stock outside the US and Europe (including the UK),” Rossbach said.  

History
The organisation oversees assets for the 200-year-old Stern dynasty, with 20 per cent of assets in the World Stars Global Equity strategy from the Stern family and its partners. It traces its origins to a wine merchant family which transformed its business into a bank in 1805 on the counsel of their neighbours, the Rothschild family, who had gone through that transition a few years earlier (coincidentally, the same year that Swiss private bank Pictet was founded). The family flourished, operating across Europe. During the Second World War, the French branch of the family represented by J Stern & Co fled to New York in 1940.  

Whilst in New York, Maurice Stern created an investment strategy of long-term quality stock picking. In 1946, he returned to Paris to rebuild the banking business in Europe, including an asset management business. After being run for two generations, the business, called Banque Stern, was sold in 1988 to Swiss Bank Corporation (now known as UBS). The family created a family office in Geneva for the Stern family. J Stern & Co founded in London in 2012, builds on that legacy. Today, it has offices in London (2012), Zurich (2014), New York (2023) and Malta (2021).