John Armitage has managed money since the early 1980s, and the record behind his firm is the reason investors keep an eye on his filings. He started Egerton Capital in London in 1994 with William Bollinger, after a career at Morgan Grenfell that began in 1981. There he ran a unit trust for six years that beat its index by 10% a year and ranked first among 85 funds, which gave him the confidence to go alone.
Egerton runs a concentrated, long-biased book. Its third-quarter 13F lists 23 holdings worth $9.82 billion, and the five largest account for 52.4% of that total.
Pricing Power, Realistic Managers and Valuation Discipline
Armitage laid out his philosophy in a podcast hosted by Nicolai Tangen, who worked for him for five years before running Norges Bank Investment Management. His first question about any idea is whether it is worth the time, since many businesses are fairly priced, and the second is whether he can understand it.
He prizes pricing power, the ability to raise prices despite competition, because a company that outpaces its own cost inflation achieves structurally rising margins. He also watches incremental margins, since a high margin on extra sales can swing profit sharply when revenue beats or misses. The balance sheet gets the same attention as the income statement, from inventories to receivables.
He wants managers who admit their mistakes and distrusts those who always present a rosy picture or lean on accounting choices to look better. Valuation matters to him, perhaps too much, he admits, because it has made him miss many great growth stocks. He dismisses enterprise value to EBITDA as meaningless because depreciation is a real cost. Readers who want to compare his style with another long-horizon manager can read our ranking of the stocks favored by a different billionaire’s fund.
Recent Returns Lag the Market, but the Long Record Holds Up
He builds positions slowly, starting small and adding as conviction grows, and he usually trims after a disappointment because he prefers confirmation of a thesis to contradiction. At the firm, two people must love an idea before it becomes large, and he prefers thematic diversification to heavy concentration.
Schroders manages the Schroder GAIA Egerton Equity fund, which Egerton oversees. Its euro accumulation share class returned 19.0% in 2025, ahead of 18.4% for the MSCI World index, after gaining 20.4% in 2024 against 21.0% for the index. Through the end of September this year it returned 1.8%, while its comparator gained 12.4%. Over three years it has compounded at 15.4% annually, and since its November 2009 launch at 7.9%.
Schroders called the quarter’s stock selection poor, as a violent tech selloff, rising bond yields and a market narrowed to artificial intelligence worked against a diversified book. Armitage told Tangen he stuck to his valuation numbers rather than chase the crowd, which he called lucky.
On technology, he dislikes the market’s concentration in AI but calls it very powerful, and he wants it to help his team rather than think for them. Investors following that theme can also browse AI picks across two other billionaire portfolios.
He also cautions that concentration is marvelous when it goes right and a disaster when it goes wrong, and says he dislikes financial leverage because longs and shorts can both move against a fund at the same time.
John Armitage of Egerton Capital
Our Methodology
For this article, we took the 10 largest holdings in the Q3 2026 13F filing of Egerton Capital, the hedge fund led by billionaire John Armitage, and ranked them in ascending order of Egerton’s stake value, as of November 7, 2026. We also list the number of shares held and each stock’s percentage of Egerton’s portfolio.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Insider Monkey’s quarterly newsletter strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 612% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 375 percentage points (see more details here).
10 Best Stocks To Buy According to Billionaire Armitage
10. CRH (NYSE:CRH)
Stake Value: $300.67 million
Number of Shares: 3,631,232
Percentage of Portfolio: 3.06%
CRH was named in Schroders’ third-quarter update among the fund’s biggest underperformers, in a group it described as obvious interest-rate-sensitive and construction-related names, alongside Vulcan and DSV. The grouping explains the setback. When bond yields rise, financing gets more expensive for housing, commercial and infrastructure projects, and demand for aggregates, cement and asphalt can soften.
Armitage’s broader comments show why a holding like this tests patience. He has said the firm invests in cycles and that getting them right is critical, because cyclical companies often look best just before a downturn. He also described the danger of being a stock picker when violent market moves are driven by shifts in rates and the economy: the numbers in a spreadsheet can stay the same while the environment around them changes, and the change is easy to notice too late. He described the firm’s style as investing where he would not worry if the stock market closed, and where valuation offers protection on the downside.
Rates and building activity are two of the variables that decide how a materials company’s earnings track, and our list of the fastest-growing grid construction stocks follows the part of that demand tied to power infrastructure.
9. S&P Global (NYSE:SPGI)
Stake Value: $311.77 million
Number of Shares: 790,364
Percentage of Portfolio: 3.17%
S&P Global reported third-quarter revenue up 7%, and management raised its adjusted earnings guidance to a range of $17.70 to $17.95 per share. Indices revenue grew 20%, billed ratings issuance climbed, and the company expects to return more than $7 billion to shareholders through buybacks this year. It also completed the spin-off of its Mobility unit earlier in the year, leaving a simpler business built around ratings, market intelligence, indices and commodity data.
The most notable announcement was a strategic review of the Capital IQ and Kensho data businesses, which could change how the company packages its financial information and AI tools. Under CEO Martina Cheung, the company has been reshaping its portfolio. How the market values those assets, and whether a sale or a restructuring follows, will shape the story into next year.
The review also puts a spotlight on a question about the company’s moat: ratings and benchmarks are hard to replicate, while data and software face more competition from technology. Whether artificial intelligence can raise the value of that data is the question behind our look at S&P Global’s AI opportunity.
8. Medline (NASDAQ:MDLN)
Stake Value: $460.92 million
Number of Shares: 13,283,017
Percentage of Portfolio: 4.69%
Medline has been a frustrating position for Armitage, though he has explained his case in detail. He describes the company as the largest medical-surgical supplier in the United States, with deep prime-vendor relationships across the hospital market. Its own-brand products earn some of the best margins in the sector and generate about 80% of profit, which he sees as the source of its pricing power.
The shares disappointed after management cut its 2026 earnings guidance at midyear, citing tariffs, a warehouse fire, recalls and onboarding costs. Egerton had trimmed the position before that report, and it cut again in the third quarter when the stock was among the quarter’s underperformers. Armitage still calls the stock undervalued and labels it a category killer.
His argument is that earnings will recover once those one-off costs fade. He expects mid-teens earnings growth per share from 2027 to 2030, a pace that would reward the patience he describes as central to his approach.
Hospital supply is one of several healthcare niches covered in our list of the best healthcare stocks to buy according to hedge funds.
7. Devon Energy (NYSE:DVN)
Stake Value: $498.59 million
Number of Shares: 10,829,392
Percentage of Portfolio: 5.08%
Armitage regards Devon Energy as a strong operator in the best oil basin in the country. The all-stock merger with Coterra closed earlier this year, and he expects the combined company to beat its $1 billion synergy target, citing a long list of cost initiatives and low well costs. He added to the position during the summer.
Part of his argument rests on assets the market overlooks. Properties outside the Delaware Basin make up roughly 40% of the company’s market value by his estimate, and a portfolio review is due. Two activist investors are involved, and he sees the balance sheet strengthening as leverage falls to a low multiple of earnings by year end, with an $8 billion buyback authorization behind it.
Oil is the risk he names. The shares, in his view, discount a $60 oil price, below the mid-cycle range management plans around. He treats the oil price as the variable that could break the thesis, which is why valuation protection matters to him.
6. Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)
Stake Value: $715.26 million
Number of Shares: 2,099,142
Percentage of Portfolio: 7.28%
Alphabet is the second hyperscaler Armitage has in mind when he says Egerton owns two of them, and it has been a source of friction. It detracted from the fund’s results in a summer month when investors debated whether cloud providers will earn adequate returns on their AI capital spending, and announced changes among its senior AI leaders added to the unease. Egerton trimmed the holding in that month and again in the next one.
Armitage nevertheless keeps the two hyperscalers as a large exposure. He has argued that their market positions would end stronger if smaller neocloud rivals struggled, and he is openly skeptical of how those rivals are valued, since a measure based on earnings before depreciation ignores their largest cost.
The trims also fit his habit of cutting positions after a disappointment, because he prefers confirmation of a thesis to contradiction. He has said that chasing the crowd at the moment of greatest gloom would have been a disaster, and that the discipline is to ask whether the numbers underpinning the position are still valid.
The company’s autonomous driving unit adds another variable, and a look at whether Alphabet’s valuation accounts for Waymo’s potential takes that up.
5. Moody’s (NYSE:MCO)
Stake Value: $743.52 million
Number of Shares: 1,637,246
Percentage of Portfolio: 7.57%
Moody’s appeared in a Schroders monthly update as a detractor, with the fund citing the potential for reduced debt issuance as interest rates rose. The comment captures the stock’s central sensitivity. A large part of the ratings agency’s revenue comes when companies and governments borrow in the bond market, and higher yields give borrowers a reason to wait or to borrow less.
The company has two engines, though. Its ratings business earns fees tied to issuance, while a second unit sells data, analytics and research on subscription, giving it a steadier revenue base that is less exposed to the borrowing cycle. A rate-driven slowdown in issuance therefore tests only part of the business.
Armitage has said that cyclical exposure is important to get right, because a cyclical company often looks its best just before a downturn. For a holding like this, the question is how much of the earnings stream depends on market conditions, and the answer shifts with the mix between ratings and analytics and with how quickly borrowers return once yields settle.
Moody’s push into private credit is the focus of our analysis of whether it can build a durable subscription business.
4. Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA)
Stake Value: $854.59 million
Number of Shares: 3,741,971
Percentage of Portfolio: 8.7%
Armitage bought Nvidia early this year after missing its first big move, and it has grown into a top-ten holding. Two developments changed his mind. Evidence of real AI value had built up, including Anthropic adding $5 billion of annualized revenue in six weeks, and the shares had de-rated from 35 times forward earnings to 23 times.
He told Nicolai Tangen that he is neither a physicist nor a coder, but wants to feel he can understand why Nvidia might succeed. That means working through its economics. Memory cost inflation matters because of its effect on the bill of materials at a company earning gross margins near three-quarters.
His thesis rests on supply. Demand exceeds supply through 2027, management guides to strong sales growth next year, and he expects its share of AI chip spending to slip only gradually. He regards the circular financing around customers as rational and carefully sized. At about 15 times estimated 2027 earnings, he calls the valuation highly attractive.
Beyond data centers, a look at how Nvidia is using AI growth to expand in autonomous driving covers a newer growth path.
3. Amphenol (NYSE:APH)
Stake Value: $902.74 million
Number of Shares: 10,708,713
Percentage of Portfolio: 9.19%
Armitage calls Amphenol a brilliant company that supplies into Nvidia, and he named it when asked how Egerton takes part in the AI boom. He said he does not like the concentration of the market in AI but finds it very powerful, and that so much of the US economy now keys off it that every portfolio ends up holding more of it than its manager expects.
The stock has been a regular contributor to the fund’s results. It helped in the first quarter and again in June, and it was the top contributor in a later monthly update, when Schroders credited increased confidence in AI demand. Armitage has called the connector and sensor maker more diversified than other AI plays, even though it is a core supplier to Nvidia.
That diversification fits a stated preference. He has said he likes being thematically diversified, a stance he called unfashionable, and he wants to understand the operating leverage that decides whether a business massively out- or underperforms expectations.
For a wider view of the sector, our list of the best AI infrastructure stocks for long-term investors is a good place to start.
2. Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Stake Value: $1.17 billion
Number of Shares: 4,714,127
Percentage of Portfolio: 11.96%
Amazon is one of the two hyperscalers Armitage says Egerton owns, and he has been candid that it has not been an easy holding. It weighed more than any other position on the portfolio in the first quarter, and it detracted again in a later month when investors argued over whether cloud providers will earn adequate returns on their capital spending.
His response has been to lean on the demand data. He cited management comments that most of the capacity for 2027 is already reserved and that demand for 2028 looks striking, and he noted that AI servers pay back in a little under three years. He has also argued that the hyperscalers are a core exposure whose market positions would end stronger if the smaller neocloud rivals suffered.
That contrast ties to his skepticism about valuing the neoclouds on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, since depreciation is their biggest cost. Armitage said he dislikes the market’s concentration in AI but finds it very powerful, which is why Egerton participates.
Another route to growth is covered in a piece on whether Amazon’s cash engines can fund its robotaxi bet.
1. Visa (NYSE:V)
Stake Value: $1.47 billion
Number of Shares: 4,079,226
Percentage of Portfolio: 14.93%
Visa is Egerton’s largest holding, and Armitage used it to illustrate how he thinks about modeling a company. He pointed to its margins of roughly 67%, saying the drivers of the top line and the costs are clear enough that mix effects matter far less than they do at businesses whose economics are private. That transparency lets him judge whether the valuation numbers underpinning the position still hold.
Those numbers were tested this year. Armitage said there was a time when the shares could hardly be given away, and that sticking with the position, rather than chasing the crowd at the point of maximum gloom, turned out to be fortunate, as the stock has since risen about 20%. A later Schroders monthly update listed it as a detractor on concerns about consumer health, a reminder that its revenue follows spending volumes. Egerton also owns Mastercard, giving it exposure to the broader payments network.
The pressure point for any payments leader is how much of each dollar flows back to large clients, an issue explored in our look at whether bigger client rebates are worth the valuation.
READ NEXT: Visa Trades at 24 Times Forward Earnings. Can Payment Growth Justify the Premium? and Amazon vs. Alphabet: Is GOOGL’s Cloud Growth Being Undervalued?
