The ‘struggling six’: which fund managers are backing a 2025 laggard?

A painful truth of investing is that companies once regarded as market leaders can, and do, hit the buffers.

An obvious recent example of this is former market darling Novo Nordisk AS Class B (XETRA:NOV): a combination of challenges and missteps have left the shares in something of a downward spiral since last summer. The shares are down by around 50% for 2025 year-to-date alone.

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Terry Smith, who oversees Fundsmith Equity, said the firm’s share price decline was one of the main reasons behind his fund losing money in the first half of 2025.

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A few other widely held shares, in the UK and beyond, are in the wars.

There’s the once slow and steady RELX (LSE:REL), which has suffered in the face of concerns about disruption from artificial intelligence (AI), as well as London Stock Exchange Group (LSE:LSEG), Diageo (LSE:DGE) and Rightmove (LSE:RMV), which have had their own issues.

Overseas, UnitedHealth Group Inc (NYSE:UNH), once a top 10 holding for a handful of global equity funds, has run into a multitude of problems.

Source: FE Analytics/Google Finance for Novo Nordisk. Figures given in local currency and as at 25/11/2025. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.

Those who pick stocks will wonder whether to cling on to these names, while bargain hunters might think of getting involved while prices are low.

But for those who use funds to access equity markets, it’s worth asking just how widely held these struggling shares still are.

We have scoured the latest fund factsheets and noted where managers have an allocation of 5% or more to a given stock as a way of answering that question.

The funds holding UK strugglers

Given that UK investors might hold domestic shares directly but also back some fund managers who invest here, it’s worth asking which portfolios are most exposed. Investors may be relieved to know that the degree of exposure is relatively limited, with one troubled star fund manager appearing to take most of the heat.

Relx is the most widely held stock (on a weighting of 5% or more) from our list, and those names with exposure are detailed in the table. As the first four funds in the list show, it’s Lindsell Train’s UK and global portfolios with the most significant exposure.

Source: fund factsheets.

Nick Train has spent recent years attempting to capitalise on the rise of AI by backing companies with substantial amounts of proprietary data and Relx, London Stock Exchange and Rightmove are all examples he cites here.

These are all big positions for his funds: Relx might account for 11.3% of Finsbury Growth & Income, for example, but LSEG makes up a further 11.2%, with Rightmove on 7.9%. Diageo is a 9.1% position.

As such, investors worried about these names might wish to avoid the Lindsell Train stable, although those funds do offer a way into said stocks for anyone expecting them to recover.

There could be some good news on the horizon: note that Diageo, for one, recently brought in Sir Dave Lewis, the man credited with the turnaround of Tesco, as a new boss.

Source: Analytics, as at 25/11/2025. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.

Others beyond Nick Train

As the second table shows, Relx does have a few other backers.

The team behind Evenlode Income, a total return-minded UK income fund that sometimes backs similar names to Nick Train, has a 5.3% position, while a couple of BlackRock funds are exposed, alongside Invesco Income & Growth and Dunedin Income Growth.

Note that TM SDL UK Buffettology General Acc is also exposed, although that portfolio could be due some changes in future now that the fund firm behind it has been bought out.

It’s worth touching on some of the other UK stocks and who backs them. Beyond Nick Train’s team, a once very popular fund, Ninety One UK Alpha I Acc, and stablemate Ninety One UK Equity Income I Inc 2, have allocations of more than 5% each to both LSEG and Diageo.

Beyond that, no other UK funds have allocations of 5% or greater to the names listed. That might come as a relief, although some managers could slowly be building up positions in some of these names in the hope of an eventual recovery.

Another star

We talked earlier about the rise and fall of Novo Nordisk, and our analysis shows that just one fund from the Europe ex UK and Europe fund and trust sectors has a position of more than 5%. No global fund (including, now, Fundsmith) has such exposure either.

If Nick Train built his reputation by having big allocations to successful companies and holding them for a long period, it’s an erstwhile star manager from the European equity space with a similar approach who crops up here.

Alexander Darwall, who runs the European Opportunities Trust (LSE:EOT) portfolio, has a 6.2% allocation to Novo Nordisk, although this is much diminished from earlier levels.

Note, for example that at the end of May 2023 (a date covered by its annual report published that year), Novo Nordisk accounted for 13% of the portfolio even after the team had sold down a chunk of its position.

The trust’s continued substantial position here sets it apart from other European equity funds. No other name hits the 5% position size threshold, although the Fidelity European Trust Ord (LSE:FEV) has a 3.3% weighting to Novo shares.

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European Opportunities also holds another of the struggling names from our list: it can delve into the UK market and has a 5.9% allocation to Relx.

Turning to the US, UnitedHealth Group doesn’t tend to crop up as a big position, bar in some dedicated healthcare funds.

It was a 5.2% position for the iShares S&P 500 Health Care Sect ETF$Acc (LSE:IUHC) on 21 November, and has been a big holding for the Bellevue Healthcare Ord (LSE:BBH).

With the latter having proposed a new investment manager and strategy (that would see it turn into a long/short vehicle), its exposure here could potentially be short-lived.

It’s worth noting that other funds, especially those with a value remit, might be taking positions in struggling shares like these, although the size of such positions can be limited.