Professional investors are currently looking for stocks that perform well in inflation.

Asset managers question the view that stocks are always a good choice in times of rising inflation rates.

Along with rising interest rates, yesterday's hopefuls such as tech stocks can quickly come under pressure.

The Swiss fund company Bantleon has now identified an asset class that benefits from high inflation rates: infrastructure stocks.

Markus Fruehauf

Editor in Business.

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The area is very broad: from toll road operators to radio mast operators to waste disposal.

But Johannes Maier, Bantleon's portfolio manager for global infrastructure stocks, is convinced that this segment will remain on the upswing this year.

He justifies his confidence with the fiscal programs in the trillions for the sustainable transformation of the economy and the development of inflation, which means that real interest rates will continue to be low.

"The infrastructure segment therefore also offers an attractive combination of growth and stability in 2022," he writes in a recent comment.

Maier is responsible for the Bantleon Select Infrastructure fund, which has gained 10.2 percent in value since its launch in June 2019, which corresponds to an annual return of 3.8 percent.

In the past month, the fund was sucked into the weaker overall market and recorded a minus of 6.2 percent.

Monopoly business models

According to the fund, it focuses on “business models with a monopolistic character, high barriers to market entry and demand that is relatively independent of the economy”.

Oligopolistic market structures are currently very popular because they make it easier to enforce higher prices than in markets with intense competition.

The largest single position in the fund is French concessions and construction group Vinci, with a stake of almost 5 percent.

Maier considers the company particularly attractive because, among other things, it operates toll roads, but is also active in the field of renewable energies.

In his view, another growth area is digital infrastructure. Demand for fiber optic connections for high-speed Internet is likely to double in Europe by 2026.

Maier considers Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom to be particularly attractive because they have their own network infrastructure and can benefit from a possible consolidation.