Expertise & Collaboration
Our diverse, disciplined team works together to build and maintain concentrated portfolios of what we believe are the highest-quality companies worldwide.
Location: Boca Raton, FL
Head of Team: Damon Ficklin, Portfolio Manager & Analyst
Our Investment Philosophy
Concentrated Portfolio: High Active Share
Risk Management: “Don’t Lose” Mentality
Long Holding/Compounding Period: Time Arbitrage
Outcome Orientation: “Weighing Machine vs. Voting Machine”
APPROACH
Our Strategic Approach
Large Company Growth Stock Selection Process
We select stocks through our time-tested process, fine-tuned over three decades. Our in-depth research and stringent guardrails support objective screening and monitoring. We identify and invest in only our best ideas—companies we believe demonstrate competitive advantages and sustainable growth potential across long time horizons.
The Polen Large Company Growth strategies typically hold 20 to 35 companies that the portfolio management team feels are the highest-quality growth names. Examples as of 12/31/2024 include:
In our view, this multinational tech company is one of the most competitively advantaged in the world, with leadership positions across e-commerce, cloud, and advertising. The company is undergoing a structural mix shift toward faster-growing segments like Amazon Web Services, advertising, Prime subscriptions, and the third-person seller marketplace. We believe this evolution will lift margins over time and drive strong earnings growth for the foreseeable future.
We view SAP as one of the most resilient software business models, given its integral role in their customers’ day-to-day operations, making it difficult to turn off or scale back. With its substantial market position, vast partner ecosystem, balanced growth across new and existing customers, high recurring revenues, and an improving margin profile, we see SAP as well-positioned to sustain at least mid-teens earnings growth for years to come.
UK-based Sage Group holds a leading position as a scaled provider of mission-critical accounting and financial software for customers across Europe and North America. In recent years, we have been impressed by the company’s successful transition to the cloud and its strategic refocus on the core business by divesting non-core segments, with proceeds reinvested into R&D. These initiatives have driven accelerating revenue growth, improving margins, and highly recurring revenue, creating a long runway for sustainable mid-teens earnings growth.
These stocks were selected as representative holdings due to their large relative size in our Portfolios at the time of selection and their alignment with our investment philosophy.
We are committed to the pursuit of adding value and growing the assets of our clients over the long term.
Our Team
An Experienced, Research-Driven Team
Recent Perspectives
Thought CapitalThe relentless rise of concentration raises important questions for investors.
Strategies
Polen Capital Management, LLC is an independent registered investment advisor.
The information is provided for illustrative purposes only. Opinions and views expressed constitute the judgment of Polen Capital as of the period indicated , may involve a number of assumptions and estimates which are not guaranteed, and are subject to change without update. Although the information and any opinions or views given have been obtained from or based on sources believed to be reliable, no warranty or representation is made as to their correctness, completeness or accuracy. Opinions, estimates, forecasts, and statements of financial market trends that are based on current market conditions constitute our judgment and are subject to change without update, including any forward-looking estimates or statements which are based on certain expectations and assumptions. The views and strategies described may not be suitable for all clients. This information does not identify all the risks (direct or indirect) or other considerations which might be material to you when entering any financial transaction.
Holdings are subject to change. The holdings, as well as other data, are as of the period indicated and should not be considered as a recommendation to purchase, hold or sell any particular security. There is no assurance that any of the securities noted will remain in a portfolio at the time you review this information. Actual holding and percentage allocation in individual client portfolios may vary and are subject to change. The securities discussed do not necessarily represent the entire portfolio. It should not be assumed that any of the holdings discussed were or will prove to be profitable or that the investment recommendations or decisions we make in the future will be profitable. A list of all securities held in this portfolio in the prior year is available upon request. Past performance does not guarantee future results and profitable results cannot be guaranteed.
Active Share: is a measure of the percentage of stock holdings in a manager's portfolio that differs from the benchmark index. "Weighing Machine vs. Voting Machine": In the short term, the market might be swayed by various factors like news and sentiment, and act like a “voting machine” or a popularity contest. Long term, the market will factor in the fundamentals and act like a weighing machine, and primarily reflect the corporate earnings trajectory.