The Infusive Consumer Alpha Global Leaders Fund delivered +2.8% in September. The YTD performance is +12.9%. These are net numbers for the USD A share class.
We’ve shared for some time our conviction that artificial intelligence is no longer a fringe technology—it’s now central to how the world’s most successful consumer companies compete, grow, and endure. September confirmed that view. Across categories—digital, discretionary, and staples—our portfolio’s strongest contributors were not simply beneficiaries of AI hype, but operators embedding it deeply into their business models.
At Infusive, we believe the consumer sector is the ultimate manifestation of AI uplift. No other segment of the global economy combines such massive data ecosystems, behavioral feedback loops, and direct relationships with billions of end users. From search to shopping baskets, from beverages to beauty, the next phase of margin expansion, innovation, and value creation will increasingly flow through companies that use AI to anticipate, personalise, and deliver.
Digital Leadership Meets AI Execution
September cast Alphabet into the market’s spotlight, but investor attitudes have remained mixed—a fact often lost amid the headlines of record highs and antitrust victories. When our team increased our exposure in Alphabet, its valuation was trading at a notable discount to both the market and its ‘Magnificent Seven’ tech peers—reflecting widespread skepticism about its near-term prospects and the impact of generative AI on its dominant search and ad businesses. We believed this dislocation provided a clear opportunity to invest in a world-class platform whose asset base, user reach, and balance sheet all remained strong..
The prevailing market narrative has focused on the fear that AI tools would lower barriers for competitors, making it easier to build challenger products capable of peeling away Alphabet’s historical advantages. While technically true, this view underestimates Alphabet’s own capacity for innovation and adaptation. The company’s track record demonstrates that it (has and) can successfully evolve—turning AI into a growth accelerant rather than a disruptor, continuously enhancing its consumer offering to boost retention and customer spend.
Alphabet’s $3 trillion market cap is not simply a story of consumer apps and digital advertising. The company could be a key enabler of the changing nature of the services sector, which constitutes roughly 60% of global GDP. Just as cloud computing and digital ads transformed industries, we believe Google’s AI and cloud infrastructure offerings could enable entirely new solutions for professional and business services—expanding the addressable market far beyond current projections.
Crucially, Alphabet has earned the right to reinvest heavily by virtue of its robust core businesses, high free cash flow, and a cash balance among the highest in global markets. Its $85 billion annual capex and deep R&D budgets are fully supported by profits—this is not financial risk-taking, but rather disciplined, scaled reinvestment aimed at enhancing their data, compute, and AI leadership.
With any cycle, there are ups and downs and these are always difficult to predict, however the market anxiety that “AI is a bubble” ignores the evidence of Alphabet’s capability to both defend and expand its core platform while pioneering new sectors. As an incumbent with a unique innovation culture, scale advantages, and financial strength, Alphabet isn’t merely weathering industry shifts—it is shaping them. We remain confident that Alphabet’s journey from market discount to technology leader has much further to go, as its cloud and AI capabilities increasingly intersect with the largest segments of the global economy.
Alibaba’s AI Revolution
Another strong performer in September was Alibaba. Like Alphabet, this represents the culmination of leadership, investment and execution over a sustained period of time. Alibaba’s renewed momentum is being powered by one of the most ambitious AI transformations in corporate Asia. Following founder Jack Ma’s return and the rollout of its trillion-parameter Qwen 3-Max model, the company has signaled a decisive shift from recovery to leadership. Management has described artificial intelligence as central to every part of the business—redefining how consumers interact across Taobao, Tmall, and AliExpress, and reshaping logistics and cloud operations from the ground up. In September, Alibaba also deepened its collaboration with Nvidia to accelerate AI infrastructure at scale, underscoring its intent to remain at the technological frontier. This renewed confidence has coincided with rapid user adoption of new AI-enabled products, validating Alibaba’s unmatched distribution capabilities and ecosystem reach.
Crucially, Alibaba is not adopting AI as a single product line—it is betting the entire franchise on it. Under CEO Eddie Wu’s leadership, the company is transitioning into its “user-first, AI-driven” model that aligns cloud computing and e-commerce as twin engines of growth. The $53 billion investment program announced earlier this year is one of the largest in global tech, funding both next-generation computing infrastructure and advanced foundational models. Alibaba’s Qwen family of large language models—now open-sourced globally—anchors this strategy by enabling innovation across industries, from retail and finance to logistics and smart cities. These initiatives are already creating measurable gains in marketing efficiency, automation, and cloud profitability.
From an investor’s perspective, Alibaba’s strategic positioning in AI mirrors how the company approached e-commerce two decades ago: with vision, scale, and execution discipline. Its diversified ecosystem—spanning 900 million annual users on Taobao and Tmall, 300 million on AliExpress, and 5 billion parcels annually through Cainiao—offers powerful data feedback loops and training advantages that are extremely difficult to replicate. These network effects, supported by its leading cloud business, place Alibaba in an enviable position to monetize AI adoption across China and internationally. The combination of proprietary models, hardware acceleration through partnerships, and an open platform for developers gives Alibaba an edge in capturing the productivity surge emerging from AI-driven digital transformation.
The coming years are likely to prove pivotal. Chairman Joe Tsai has emphasized that within five years, every Alibaba business will be driven by artificial intelligence, from consumer experience to supply-chain optimization. This strategic clarity, combined with world-class infrastructure and a strong balance sheet, positions Alibaba not only as a tech recovery story, but as an early architect of Asia’s AI economy. For long-term investors, Alibaba’s AI reinvention may represent one of the most consequential transformations in modern Chinese enterprise—where innovation, scale, and structural tailwinds converge to create durable shareholder value.
The Consumer AI Revolution
September reinforced our central thesis: companies with leaders that see AI as a product, not a project, are winning.
Across the consumer landscape, we see AI reshaping how companies manage risk, optimise capital, and deepen loyalty. It’s visible in pricing algorithms that respond in real time to consumer mood and inventory levels; in predictive models that tailor marketing spend with surgical precision; and in supply chains that learn from themselves.
As AI permeates both digital ecosystems and physical retail, the boundary between consumer discretionary and consumer staples is dissolving, for those that adapt. The future belongs to brands that merge technological fluency with human relevance—companies that make consumers feel both understood and empowered. Those businesses who have incredibly high barriers to entry (such as a cruising company with physical assets), who can combine those moats with technology are well positioned, in our view.
Infusive’s portfolio is exposed to this convergence, balancing structural growth in digital leaders with cyclically resilient staples and innovative discretionary names.
Alcohol: Navigating Uncertainty
Alcohol has been a subject of robust debate amongst the Team — and rightly so. The sector has faced a confluence of headwinds: slowing volumes, shifting consumer preferences, GLP-1 disruption, and lingering inventory overhangs. Diageo, long regarded as the sector’s bellwether, fell sharply in September and it continues one of the weakest periods for the company ever.
Within the team, discussions around alcohol are both data-driven and candid. We debate whether the challenges reflect cyclical pressure, structural change, or a mix of both. Consumption among younger cohorts continues to moderate; “sober-curious” trends and health-oriented lifestyles are becoming embedded cultural shifts, not passing fads. At the same time, the rapid adoption of GLP-1 drugs is introducing a new variable into social consumption patterns, compressing volumes in unpredictable ways.
Alcohol has been the weakest category for the Fund in 2025, costing -0.35%. We exited all alcohol holdings earlier in the year, except for Diageo, where we hold a modest position, due to a recent leadership change.
Operationally, Diageo’s near-term fundamentals remain soft. The company withdrew its medium-term growth targets, and inventory imbalances in select regions are taking longer to normalise. Against this backdrop, we’ve kept our position deliberately modest — acknowledging both the brand’s enduring strength and the uncertainty around timing of recovery.
Despite these challenges, we believe there is a level of valuation support. Diageo trades at roughly 16× forward earnings, versus its ten-year average of 21×, with the sector discount to staples near its widest level since 2011. The market is aware of the challenges. For long-term investors, that compression introduces optionality if — and only if — execution improves under the new leadership team.
Our stance remains pragmatic: we are engaged but cautious. The sector’s fundamentals are under pressure, but its brands remain powerful global assets. History has shown that categories subject to structural debate can often yield meaningful opportunity once the narrative stabilizes. For now, we size the position relative to the uncertainty we see — and continue to scrutinize both data and management actions before adding conviction.
Looking Ahead: Durable Advantage Through Intelligent Adaptation
The defining characteristic of September was not volatility, but transformation. Across our universe, AI is proving to be a force that rewards adaptability and punishes complacency.
Infusive’s framework—spanning consumer digital, staples, and discretionary—is built for this kind of environment. By blending deep fundamental research with an understanding of behavioral trends and technological inflection points, we aim to identify the businesses most capable of compounding value sustainably.
Please contact a member of the Team if you would for more detail.
Thank you for your support.
The Infusive Team