Lindsell Train has opened its North American Equity Fund to outside investors for the first time.
The fund was launched in May 2020 to allow managers within the firm, other than founders Michael Lindsell and Nick Train, to manage a portfolio with “complete autonomy”.
It was originally seeded by the Lindsell Train Investment Trust, with Train and Lindsell also putting their own cash into the new portfolio.
Since inception it has returned 17.6 per cent, compared with its benchmark, MSCI’s North American Index, which returned 24.7 per cent.
In the year to February 28, the fund returned 11.7 per cent, compared with the benchmark’s 19 per cent.
A spokesperson for the firm said it was being opened through a small number of fund platforms due to increasing client demand.
The fund’s largest holdings are in Estee Lauder (7.34 per cent), American Express (6.24 per cent), Alphabet (5.97 per cent), and Equifax (5.7 per cent).
The minimum investment is £500,000 and the ongoing charges figure is 0.88 per cent per annum.
In a monthly factsheet released on March 8, James Bullock highlighted that the fund had mildly outperformed the benchmark in February, returning -2.4 per cent compared with MSCI’s index showing -2.8 per cent.
The fund was impacted by a 35 per cent drop in PayPal’s share price, as well as Intuit falling 15 per cent.
“All said, we still lag our benchmark by 3.2 per cent year-to-date, making for a disappointing start to the year (particularly as we still trail our since-inception numbers),” he said.
He added that it will wait to see what the rest of the year brings, but that he believes the fund is populated with durable, inflation-proofed real assets with very high internal rates of return, trading at quite undemanding valuations.
“All desirable attributes as we head for more turbulent times,” he added.
sally.hickey@ft.com
