Question 01
How different is different?
Everyone says they're different. Fund fact sheets show otherwise.
Every manager claims they’re different. Then you open the holdings and find the same ten stocks as everyone else, in roughly the same order. Open the Orbis fact sheets and you’ll likely see big positions in stocks you’ve never heard of, and no exposure to the ones everyone is talking about. This has been a pattern throughout our history.
We say we are different—and then we show you the difference. In 1998, we put 40% of the Orbis Global Equity Strategy into Japanese stocks when it was the market nobody would touch. In the dotcom bubble we owned almost no tech. And when the Magnificent Seven became the positions no investor could be seen without, we saw little value and owned almost none of them. Same markets as everyone else. Different conclusions.
Same information. Different conclusions.
When investors fall in love with an area of the market, we rarely share their enthusiasm.
Nobody in the industry admits they are following the crowd. Every brochure tells a good story, until you turn the page and the portfolio looks just like an index fund. There's a reason for that, and it isn't dishonesty. Humans are wired to seek the comfort of the tribe, and asset managers are no different. Investors say one thing and do another because sticking your neck out is genuinely uncomfortable.
So don’t take our word for it. Look at what we’ve done. As our founder Allan Gray liked to say, “Deeds, not words.” He backed it up by leaving a successful career at Fidelity to move back home to South Africa and start his own firm in 1973, taking on the local banks and insurance companies. That firm—Allan Gray—is now South Africa’s largest privately-owned asset management firm.
Then he did it again on a global stage. Orbis was founded in 1989, amid an epic bubble in the Japanese stockmarket. Japan was more than 40% of global equity market capitalisation back then. Its weight in our Global Equity Strategy? Zero. Nearly a decade later, after the bubble burst and Japanese stocks were left for dead, we loaded up, holding more than 40% of the Orbis Global Equity Strategy in Japanese equities in 1998. We even launched a dedicated Japan Equity Strategy that same year.
Global Equity Strategy: a history of questioning consensus
31 Dec 2025 | Source: LSEG Worldscope, Orbis. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. Orbis share prices fluctuate and are not guaranteed. Returns may decrease or increase as a result of currency fluctuations. When making an investment in Orbis, an investor’s capital is at risk. Please refer to the notices page explaining how returns are calculated. The exposures noted above represent the biggest difference between the accounts and benchmark during the given year. *“Value shares” represent the aggregate weighting in the FTSE World Index and the representative account of the Orbis Global Equity Strategy of the cheapest half of the shares based on the ranking of their valuations (normalised earnings yield, free cash flow yield and book to price, based on trailing 12 month fundamentals); compiled from an internal research database and subject to subsequent revision due to changes in methodology or data cleaning.
The tech bubble in the late 1990s is another example. Telecom, media, and technology stocks had swollen to 40% of global market cap and ignoring the so-called “New Economy” was considered foolish. The Orbis Global Equity Strategy owned almost no tech. Our largest holdings made mobile homes and golf clubs. Clients thought we'd lost it and we lost many of them. But those who stayed experienced one of our greatest periods of outperformance as the bubble burst in the years that followed.
Most recently, a handful of US mega-caps came to dominate sentiment and capital flows. The US grew to nearly 70% of global equity indices, with 10 stocks making up roughly 40% of the S&P 500 on their own. We owned almost none of them, finding more value outside the US and in mid-sized US companies. Those are just a few examples. But they are united by a common thread.
When investors fall in love with a particular area of the market, we rarely share their enthusiasm. And when they are afraid to touch it, we may find more opportunities than we know what to do with. That doesn’t mean we are always right. But it means we have something truly different to offer.
Global Equity Strategy: a truly different portfolio
31 Dec 2025 | Source: eVestment, Orbis. Ownership percentage is the percentage of products within the universe that hold the security. Count of Products that hold a Security/Total Universe Products that Reported holdings. Data is based on a representative account for the Orbis Global Equity Strategy. Top 10 companies in the Index and Strategy as at 31 Dec 2025. Ownership data as at 30 Sep 2025. eVestment and its affiliated entities (collectively, “eVestment”) collect information directly from investment management firms and other sources believed to be reliable; however, eVestment does not guarantee or warrant the accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of the information provided and is not responsible for any errors or omissions. Not for general distribution.
Nobody in the industry admits they are following the crowd. Every brochure tells a good story, until you turn the page and the portfolio looks just like an index fund. There's a reason for that, and it isn't dishonesty. Humans are wired to seek the comfort of the tribe, and asset managers are no different. Investors say one thing and do another because sticking your neck out is genuinely uncomfortable.
So don’t take our word for it. Look at what we’ve done. As our founder Allan Gray liked to say, “Deeds, not words.” He backed it up by leaving a successful career at Fidelity to move back home to South Africa and start his own firm in 1973, taking on the local banks and insurance companies. That firm—Allan Gray—is now South Africa’s largest privately-owned asset management firm.
Same information. Different conclusions.
Then he did it again on a global stage. Orbis was founded in 1989, amid an epic bubble in the Japanese stockmarket. Japan was more than 40% of global equity market capitalisation back then. Its weight in our Global Equity Strategy? Zero. Nearly a decade later, after the bubble burst and Japanese stocks were left for dead, we loaded up, holding more than 40% of the Orbis Global Equity Strategy in Japanese equities in 1998. We even launched a dedicated Japan Equity Strategy that same year.
Global Equity Strategy: a history of questioning consensus
31 Dec 2025 | Source: LSEG Worldscope, Orbis. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. Orbis share prices fluctuate and are not guaranteed. Returns may decrease or increase as a result of currency fluctuations. When making an investment in Orbis, an investor’s capital is at risk. Please refer to the notices page explaining how returns are calculated. The exposures noted above represent the biggest difference between the accounts and benchmark during the given year. *“Value shares” represent the aggregate weighting in the FTSE World Index and the representative account of the Orbis Global Equity Strategy of the cheapest half of the shares based on the ranking of their valuations (normalised earnings yield, free cash flow yield and book to price, based on trailing 12 month fundamentals); compiled from an internal research database and subject to subsequent revision due to changes in methodology or data cleaning.
The tech bubble in the late 1990s is another example. Telecom, media, and technology stocks had swollen to 40% of global market cap and ignoring the so-called “New Economy” was considered foolish. The Orbis Global Equity Strategy owned almost no tech. Our largest holdings made mobile homes and golf clubs. Clients thought we'd lost it and we lost many of them. But those who stayed experienced one of our greatest periods of outperformance as the bubble burst in the years that followed.
Most recently, a handful of US mega-caps came to dominate sentiment and capital flows. The US grew to nearly 70% of global equity indices, with 10 stocks making up roughly 40% of the S&P 500 on their own. We owned almost none of them, finding more value outside the US and in mid-sized US companies. Those are just a few examples. But they are united by a common thread.
When investors fall in love with a particular area of the market, we rarely share their enthusiasm. And when they are afraid to touch it, we may find more opportunities than we know what to do with. That doesn’t mean we are always right. But it means we have something truly different to offer.
Global Equity Strategy: a truly different portfolio
31 Dec 2025 | Source: eVestment, Orbis. Ownership percentage is the percentage of products within the universe that hold the security. Count of Products that hold a Security/Total Universe Products that Reported holdings. Data is based on a representative account for the Orbis Global Equity Strategy. Top 10 companies in the Index and Strategy as at 31 Dec 2025. Ownership data as at 30 Sep 2025. eVestment and its affiliated entities (collectively, “eVestment”) collect information directly from investment management firms and other sources believed to be reliable; however, eVestment does not guarantee or warrant the accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of the information provided and is not responsible for any errors or omissions. Not for general distribution.
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