Lowland Investment Company (ticker: LWI) was launched in 1963 with the dual mandate of providing income and capital growth by investing in a wide range of UK companies. James Henderson has managed this trust since 1990 and Laura Foll was appointed as co-manager in 2016. Henderson and Foll also manage two other UK-focused trusts, Law Debenture and Henderson Opportunities, plus an open-ended fund. Lowland adopts a value approach but unlike most other UK Equity Income vehicles, it only invests between a third and a half of its portfolio in FTSE 100 companies. This has hampered its recent performa...
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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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Diverse Income Trust (ticker: DIVI) is a UK equity income trust run by the respected team of Gervais Williams and Martin Turner at Premier Miton. From its launch in April 2011 to the end of May 2022, it returned 228% on a NAV total return basis versus around 90% for the UK market. It has a diversified portfolio of around 130 positions but has been able to outperform both the market and most of its sector rivals by having over half its portfolio in smaller companies. Diverse Income also makes occasional use of FTSE 100 put options to provide an element of downside protection. Its shares general...
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Nobody is more disappointed than me that Simon Elliott is leaving Winterflood Securities to take up a senior management role at J.P.Morgan Asset Management. As a result he will no longer be able to continue co-hosting the weekly Money Makers investment trust podcast. He has been a brilliant partner in this venture over the last two and a quarter years, as all the compliments that have come in since the news came out testify. He will be a tough act to follow.
Onwards and upwards? Simon bought a unique set of knowledge and skills to the podcast. As a result it seems sensible to experiment a lit...
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Nick Train has managed Finsbury Growth & Income for 21 years and has handsomely beaten the UK market during that time with the trust's net assets growing from just under £100m to over £2bn, helped by lots of regular share issuance. As with other Lindsell Train funds, this trust holds a very concentrated portfolio of 'quality growth' shares that are seldom traded. However, 2021 was a difficult year for this style of investing and the discount at Finsbury Growth & Income has widened to 5%, its largest level for a decade, and its board has taken the rare step of buying back some shares. N...
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Jonathan Davis Stuart Watson's fund profile this weekend looks in depth at Scottish Mortgage in the light of the impending retirement of its transformer-in-chief, the visionary James Anderson. My notes cover the Federal Reserve and the UK equity income sector, while I also have recorded a video about the Money Makers income portfolio, bringing it up to date and reviewing its characteristics. The next edition of the annual Investment Trusts Handbook, the fifth in the series, is due out on December 14th. As well as the traditional 280-page hardback, there is a free e-book download available from...
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For premium subscribers we periodically do interviews with fund managers and analysts about current market conditions and funds and markets (occasionally shares) that we invest in. This one takes the form of a catch up Q and A with Ian Lance and Nick Purves, who took over as managers of the Temple Bar investment trust on November 1st last year. Both men formerly worked together for Schroders before joining the boutique firm of RWC Partners. The previous Q and A with them was six months ago.
Temple Bar, founded in 1926, was managed for many years by Alastair Mundy until his departure through...
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Hugh Yarrow co-founded Evenlode Investment Management in 2009 with his brother-in-law Ben Peters after spending the early part of his career at the wealth management firm Rathbones. Unusually, but far from unsuccessfully, rather than operate from the normal City, Edinburgh or another urban location, it is run from a converted barn in the Cotswolds. The firm has around £5 billion under management and 26 employees. Disclosure: I have been an investor in Evenlode Equity Income, its largest fund, for several years.
The £3.6 billion Evenlode Equity Income fund, which is managed by Hugh Yarrow, ha...
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Gervais Williams has been manager of the Diverse Income Trust (ticker: DIVI) since 2011 and also manages a number of small and midcap funds for Premier Miton, the boutique fund management firm. Before that he spent 17 years managing small cap funds for Gartmore. He started working in the City in 1985 and has published three books on the changing nature of the UK equity market, globalisation and the rise of AIM.
Why the interest in this trust? One good reason is that Gervais Williams is an experienced and respected manager of small and midcap funds, so his thoughts on the market and individual...
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Law Debenture's unique combination of a professional services business and a UK-focused portfolio with a strong value bias enabled it to navigate 2020 with relative ease. This trust was founded in 1889, making it one of the oldest in the UK, and it boasts a strong performance record over the last few decades plus a 42-year stretch of either maintaining or increasing its dividend.
If Law Debenture didn't exist, it seems highly unlikely that someone would try and create it from scratch. But this trust has proved its strength in recent years and seems to have a renewed sense of purpose since 201...
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