IN FOCUS: INWIT ‘A CROWN JEWEL THAT BENEFITS FROM DATA CONSUMPTION’

Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane (Inwit) is essentially the infrastructure arm of Telecom Italia. As people are downloading unbelievable amounts of data, that infrastructure is valuable.

Telecom Italia had so much debt it had to sell its crown jewels, so it spun off Inwit. This happened before we all appreciated how much data consumption would explode,

It owns base stations, masts and other infrastructure, and gets all of Telecom Italia’s business.

It has started to roll out small cells to improve network quality in crowded areas such as stadiums, hospitals and city centres. Now big telecoms firms want to get involved, too.

Inwit is a boring infrastructure play that has been growing its cash flows by 10pc a year and has become a growth story.

It’s a top-10 holding in the fund and we’re the second-largest shareholder.

Of course it gets affected by Italy’s political issues. But ultimately it will benefit from themes such as 5G mobile internet, the internet of things and autonomous cars, which will make this kind of infrastructure incredibly valuable. cyclical business, beaten up after the financial crisis. But it has been able to generate tremendous cash by managing costs and because no one else has invested in the routes it covers.

The worst was Cemig, a Brazilian utility. We thought it was a nice defensive play on Brazil, but regulatory change completely killed the stock. Governments always go to these businesses and screw them when they need money.

The company is a partnership. I’m paid a portion of profits and there’s a variable revenue share from the fund.

Yes, heavily. We’re only allowed to invest in Artemis funds. The seed capital for the fund was effectively my and my colleagues’ money. It’s sad, but I’ve always wanted to be in the markets. I bought my first share at 13 when a football club floated in Denmark.

www.telegraph.co.uk/funds