Where Soul Patts is investing for long term growth and dividends

If you’re looking for the future blue chips of the ASX then Washington H Soul Pattinson might be worth a closer look. The company has been around for more than a century, has never missed a dividend payment but, for the most part, has flown under investor radars. That is starting to change following the tie up with Milton Corporation in 2021, which has helped to propel Soul Patts’s market cap over $12 bn and into the S&P/ASX 50. Soul Patts now sits alongside popular names including Mineral Resources, Car Group, ASX Ltd and Ramsay Healthcare.  Blue chip stocks are known to be large, reliable, profitable and consistent dividend payers. Soul Patts ticks most of these boxes with the exception of size perhaps. The merger with Milton brought an experienced investment team led by CEO and CIO Brendan O’Dea, 30,000 new shareholders and a $3.7bn large cap portfolio. O’Dea is now the Chief Investment Officer at Soul Patts and says the merger gives Soul Patts the platform required to build the next generation of investments that will sustain Soul Patts enviable track record of shareholder returns. “There’s a real desire on our part to seed the strategic assets of the future and a lot of that is going to come out of that private portfolio.” In this episode of The Rules of Investing, Brendan O’Dea takes Livewire’s James Marlay on a tour of the Soul Patts investment portfolio covering their large cap, emerging and strategic equity portfolios.  O’Dea also shares Soul Patts’ unique approach to capital allocation, the asset classes commanding their attention and why you should expect to see more big strategic investments in the years ahead.