Monks (ticker: MNKS) was launched in 1929 and has been managed by Baillie Gifford since 1931. It originally had a couple of sister trusts, Friars and Abbotts, before the three were combined in 1968. Monks has had a global equity mandate for many decades now and since 2015 it has managed by Baillie Gifford's Global Alpha team. Spencer Adair became Monks' lead manager in 2021, moving up from deputy manager when Charles Plowden retired. Monks breaks its portfolio of around 100-120 positions down into three main categories: Stalwarts, Rapid Growth, and Cyclical Growth. Many of its holdings overlap...
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F&C Investment Trust (ticker: FCIT) was the first investment company to be launched in 1868. Originally set up to invest in overseas government securities, over several decades it gradually branched out into corporate debt and then equities. Today it is one of the largest global equity trusts, with assets of over £5bn and a 51-year record of increasing its dividend. F&C has around 400 individual holdings, spread over ten strategies, with 13% of its assets in private companies. The trust uses some external managers for its US holdings and private equity positions but around 60% of its p...
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AVI Global Trust (ticker: AGT) was founded in 1889 and until a few years ago was known as British Empire. It has been managed by Asset Value Investors (AVI) since the mid-1980s during which time its net assets have climbed from £6m to around £1bn producing an impressive annualised return of just shy of 12%. It looks to buy quality companies and assets through structures that are trading at a discount via a concentrated portfolio of closed-ended funds, European/Asian family-run holding companies, and mostly Japanese asset-rich special situations. AVI Global often engages with its investments, a...
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Our latest Q and A for premium subscribers is with Simon Edelsten, the manager of the MidWynd investment trust, a global thematic fund in which he owns a substantial personal stake. We last had a Q and A with Simon a year ago (link here), and the trust was also the subject of one of our recent in-depth profiles. It is a member of the 2010 Money Makers portfolio.
In the Q and A I start by asking Simon to explain why he recently described market conditions as "weird" and we also discuss why he thinks those market conditions have changed in the last 12 months and "chiselling out" good real ret...
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Mid Wynd International is one of a select group of global trusts that has established a decent track record of beating world markets. While it was listed in 1981, it can trace its roots back to the late 1700s and a textile business set up by the Scott family who still own shares in the trust today. It has been managed by the Global Select team at Artemis, comprising of Simon Edelsten and Alex Illingworth, since 2014 and it runs a fairly diverse portfolio of 55-75 stocks, usually split over eight to ten different themes. Portfolio turnover is quite high, typically over 100%, but the trust's inc...
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Scottish Mortgage needs little introduction, being both the largest investment trust with a market cap of £22bn and the best-performing of the last decade with an astonishing 1,318% return. After a 110% return in 2020, long-time manager James Anderson announced that he would be stepping down in April 2022 after more than 20 years at the helm. Scottish Mortgage is perhaps most famous for its big bets on the likes of Amazon and Tesla but it's recently eased back on these in favour of vaccine maker Moderna and other healthcare stocks that make extensive use of technology. Digitisation of the econ...
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One of the lesser-known 'quality growth' vehicles in the Global sector is Martin Currie Global Portfolio. It's been a very good performer since Zehrid Osmani became its lead manager just over three years ago although, like many such funds, it has lagged a little in 2021. As well as boasting a low fee and a zero discount policy, it has largely steered clear of the mega-cap US tech stocks although it does hold Microsoft, so it may appeal to investors looking for growth while also wanting a little diversification.
Martin Currie, the manager of Martin Currie Global Portfolio, was formed in 1881 ...
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Fundsmith Equity Fund and its forthright manager Terry Smith need little introduction. Launched in November 2010, this concentrated global fund has generated an annualised return of 18.9% to date, well ahead of the 12.5% posted by the MSCI World Index. Smith is now 68 so, similar to Lindsell Train, succession plans at Fundsmith have become a frequent topic of discussion along with how performance might be impacted should the fund's assets continue to grow from their current level of £27bn.
Fundsmith Equity Fund was launched some eighteen months after the low point for stocks after the financi...
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Lindsell Train Investment Trust (LTI) has been the second-best performing investment trust over the last decade with an annualised share price return of 25.6% a year, only a little behind Scottish Mortgage's 26.9%. And since LTI launched in January 2001, it's up nearly 25-fold. A unique feature is that nearly half the trust's assets consist of a stake in Lindsell Train Limited, the portfolio manager for all of Lindsell Train's funds and the firm's two founders, Michael Lindsell and Nick Train, are now in their early 60s so management succession has become a key consideration.
Lindsell Train L...
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Stuart qualified as a chartered accountant before moving into journalism and has 20 years of experience of owning and writing about investment trusts from an independent standpoint. He is now producing regular fund profiles for the Money Makers circle. This post originally appeared on his blog but it has been added to our archive to build up our library of content.
Baillie Gifford's newest investment trust, Keystone Positive Change, got off to a volatile start earlier this year but its managers have their eyes fixed firmly on the long term. I took an initial stake in Keystone when it proposed...
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