Nick Train will manage about £180m of capital on behalf of clients of the Witan investment trust, replacing an existing UK mandate he runs for the firm.
The £2.3bn Witan trust is run by chief executive Andrew Bell as a multi-manager fund, meaning he and colleagues select other funds and invest the trust’s capital into them.
Mr Bell has previously told FTAdviser that one of the earliest, and he feels best, decisions made by Witan was to invest capital into Mr Train’s UK equity funds around two decades ago, but as part of Witan’s shift to having less invested in the UK, all of the £180m the trust presently has invested in a UK strategy run by Mr Train will be switched to a global strategy run by him.
The UK money run by Mr Train via his fund management company Lindsell Train has returned an annualised 15.5 per cent from 2010 to 2019, according to Witan.
Commenting on the decision to switch the capital into a global strategy, Mr Bell said: “Lindsell Train’s global equity portfolios (managed with the same philosophy) have been similarly successful and the board is confident that their approach of investing in exceptional, enduring brand franchises as long term investors will continue to benefit Witan’s shareholder returns, while offering a broader opportunity set than the UK market alone is able to offer.”
Both the global and UK strategies run by Mr Train have seen outflows in recent months, with ratings agency Morningstar downgrading the funds on the basis that they had grown substantially in size and so may not be able to repeat past performance.
The £180m moving from a UK strategy to a global one at Lindsell Train will not increase or decrease the level of assets under management at the firm, as it is an internal transfer.
david.thorpe@ft.com
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