The Blue Whale Growth Fund, launched in September 2017 and managed by Stephen Yiu, is one of the best-known funds in the IA Global sector. In this article we look at what it holds now, how it has performed and how much its portfolio has changed since we first wrote about it in 2019.
When investing, your capital is at risk. Past performance is not a guide to future performance. This is not a recommendation to buy the fund.
Blue Whale Growth Fund at a glance
| Manager | Stephen Yiu, Blue Whale Capital |
| Launch | 11 September 2017 |
| Sector | IA Global |
| Fund size | £2.6bn |
| Number of holdings | 30 |
| Ongoing charge (OCF) | 1.05% (R class), 0.80% (I class, £10m minimum) |
Source: Blue Whale factsheet, data as at 30 September 2026.
Most retail investors buy the I class through investment platforms, which usually waive the £10m minimum. Check the share class and charges on your platform.
How has Blue Whale performed?
Stephen Yiu once claimed that Fundsmith and Lindsell Train Global Equity were Blue Whale’s only real competitors in the IA Global sector. Here’s how the I class has done against the sector average:
| Period | Blue Whale | IA Global |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 (to 30 Sep) | +30.2% | +10.5% |
| 2025 | +28.4% | +11.2% |
| 2024 | +28.2% | +12.6% |
| 2023 | +30.7% | +12.7% |
| 2022 | -27.6% | -11.1% |
| Since launch, a year | +17.8% | +9.4% |
Source: Blue Whale factsheet, I class accumulation, net of fees, to 30 September 2026.
The record is strong, but look at 2022. The fund fell 27.6%, more than twice as much as the sector. A concentrated portfolio of 30 shares can rise and fall much more than the market.
What does Blue Whale hold now?
Like most funds, Blue Whale only publishes its top 10 holdings. On 30 September 2026, they were (in alphabetical order):
- Applied Materials
- Broadcom
- Canadian Natural Resources
- Hynix (SK Hynix)
- Lam Research
- Lumentum
- Modine
- Nvidia
- Sandisk
- Seagate
Together, these 10 make up 63.7% of the fund. The portfolio is now heavily focused on semiconductors, memory and storage, and the equipment used to make chips, the companies supplying the boom in artificial intelligence. That focus has driven recent returns, but it also means the fund depends heavily on one theme.
How the portfolio has changed since 2019
When we first wrote this article, in March 2019, we pieced together the fund’s holdings from past factsheets and commentaries. Back then, it looked very different. It held mainly established, high-quality companies:
- Adidas
- Adobe
- Alphabet
- Amazon
- Ansys
- Cisco
- Cognizant
- Dormakaba
- Facebook (now Meta)
- Guidewire
- Icon
- Microsoft
- PayPal
- Salesforce
- Smith & Nephew
- Starbucks
- UnitedHealth Group
- Veeva
- Visa
Shares it had already sold by then included Red Hat (later bought by IBM), Mastercard, Intuit, Zoetis, Moncler, Whitbread, Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard (later bought by Microsoft).
None of the 2019 names we identified appear in today’s top 10. The fund has moved from a broad mix of quality growth companies to a concentrated bet on the chip supply chain. That’s not necessarily bad, but it shows that buying a fund for its past holdings tells you little about what you’ll own in future.
Should you invest in Blue Whale?
Blue Whale has beaten the IA Global average comfortably since launch. But before you invest, consider:
- Concentration: 30 holdings, with 64% in the top 10, means bigger swings than a global index fund.
- Theme risk: much of the fund depends on chip and AI-related companies.
- Cost: an ongoing charge of 0.80% to 1.05% is several times the cost of a global index tracker.
- Key person risk: performance depends heavily on one manager’s decisions.
For most investors, a fund like this works best as a smaller part of a portfolio built around low-cost diversified funds.
For a list of high-quality shares across all sizes, see the stock list section of this site.
Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. Past performance is not a guide to future performance. The value of investments can go down as well as up.
Pedro is passionate about finance, marketing, and technology. He is a growth manager at several online projects and a former digital marketer for a fintech company.
