Brunner Investment Trust (ticker: BUT) was launched in 1927 by the Brunner family and they remain involved today with a 29% stake and a seat on the board. Allianz and its predecessor firms have managed the trust for several decades although there have been a number of changes at the fund manager level in recent years. The current team, led by Christian Schneider and Julian Brown, has been in charge since July 2022. Brunner runs a concentrated portfolio of around 60 stocks looking for quality and growth characteristics combined with reasonable valuations. It is much more UK-weighted than other ...
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In this bonus edition of the Weekly Investment Trust Podcast, Jonathan Davis, editor of the Investment Trusts Handbook, speaks to Rhys Davis (Invesco Bond Income Plus; BIPS), Phil Kent (GCP Infrastructure; GCP), and Simon Gergel (Merchants Trust; MRCH), all of who were at the recent AIC Investment Trusts Showcase event in London. A further series of conversations will feature as part of the next regular edition of the podcast, due for release on Saturday 28 October.
You can listen to this week’s podcast in full on the audio players below. Alternatively, you can subscribe and download it on most podcast channels including Soundcloud, Apple, Spotify, Google, and others, including now the Money Makers YouTube channel. We are grateful for the support of J.P. Morgan Asset Management, which enables us to keep the podcast free.
If you enjoy the weekly podcast, you may also find value in joining The Money Makers Circle. This is a membership scheme that offers subscribers an opportunity to receive additional premium content, including interviews, investment trust performance data, market/portfolio reviews and regular extracts from the editor’s notebook. This week, as well as the regular features, the Circle features a profile of City of London (CTY). Future profiles coming soon include Pacific Assets Trust (PAC) and Brunner Investment Trust (BUT). A subscription costs £8 a month, or a modest £2 a week.

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Disclosures about the editor’s personal holdings of investment trusts can be found here. Our podcasts are also available on the Association of Investment Companies website (www.theaic.co.uk) and Doceo (doceo.tv). The producer of the podcasts is the brilliant Ben Gamblin – more details on him here.
Merchants Trust (ticker: MRCH) is one of the largest and oldest UK equity income funds with around £750m in assets and a history dating back to 1889. It has been managed by Allianz's Simon Gergel since 2006 and after a slow start, he has turned it into one of the better performers in the sector over the last decade with a particularly strong performance over the last two years. Merchants frequently commands a premium rating which has enabled it to increase its share count by around 25% in the last few years. It has a relatively concentrated portfolio of around 50 holdings and typically has a g...
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