We invest in global companies that have great quality and can generate long-term compound returns. We look for businesses with strong competitive positions in good and growing industries, management teams with track records of value creation and strong balance sheets.
It has been good to see some of them in action over the past couple of months. We participated in the Sika investor and analyst days in Tokyo earlier this year, where the company highlighted the important contribution that its material technology products are making to the urbanisation and sustainability of this vast metropolitan area.
Tokyo is a city of 55 million people built in a flood plain at the confluence of several rivers, in an earthquake zone with ongoing seismic activity, much of it on reclaimed land below sea level, and threatened by rising sea levels and tsunamis. The extent of the reinvestment that public and private entities have made is extraordinary to see, whether it is the high rise buildings built by Mori and other developers where Sika technology is involved in every building in Tokyo above 180 metres, or the redevelopment of the famous Shibuya crossing, which is being rebuilt and future proofed. There has been extensive real estate redevelopment and transport infrastructure improvement. The Shibuya train station flooded during the monsoon season and is now equipped with underground water reservoirs that have been built around the existing infrastructure. Sika is providing the concrete admixtures and waterproofing membranes that enable this construction. It is an inspiring example for urban planning that cities elsewhere would do well to emulate.
With this global perspective it was also good to have meetings at the Quay Quarter Tower during a recent trip to Sydney, where Sika’s technology enabled a building built in 1976 – the tallest building in Sydney at the time – to be redeveloped preserving the concrete core, adding nine floors and doubling the floor space while saving 30% of construction costs and 12,000 tonnes of carbon. Companies like Sika point the way for global growth, innovation and sustainability. They are great examples for our investments in businesses that are providing solutions to the problems we are facing and are making opportunities of challenges like sustainability, energy transition or decarbonization.
