CQS Natural Resources Growth & Income Fund (CYN)

CYN is an investment company focused on the natural resources sector, with the aim of providing investors with both capital and income growth through both equity and fixed income investments in mining and energy companies. The trust is co-managed by Ian ‘Franco’ Francis, Keith Watson and Robert Crayfourd and has delivered a NAV return of more than 600% since its launch in August 2003. In this interview we speak to Robert Crayfourd and Keith Watson about why the resource investor currently sees more opportunity in the energy sector than mining; how it’s managing the energy transition, both through investments in battery metals and via transition fuels such as gas and clean coal, which it sees as being imprudently excluded from some portfolios; the problems with government energy policy, and how the trust’s managers keep abreast of rising geopolitical risk and resource nationalism; what catalyst is required to kickstart investment in much needed supply after many years where the focus has been mainly on shareholder returns; and the managers’ views on short-term resource demand concerns caused by economic weakness, especially in China, and why an inflationary environment could continue to be supportive for commodity investing.