InvestmentsJun 25 2014

Artemis overhauls Mid Wynd International trust

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Artemis’s global equities team is close to completing its overhaul of the Mid Wynd International investment trust less than two months after taking it on.

Artemis took on the management of the trust from Baillie Gifford in April this year following the retirement of Baillie Gifford’s Michael MacPhee, who had managed the trust for more than 15 years.

The trust is now run by the team behind the Artemis Global Select fund; Simon Edelsten, Alex Illingworth and Rosanna Burcheri, and the managers have already reshaped the trust’s portfolio to their style.

The board said yesterday, in an update to investors, that the overhaul process “is now substantially complete, with only a few small illiquid positions remaining”.

Of the top 20 holdings in the trust at the end of March only two now remain following the overhaul; East African Breweries and European financials firm Reinet Investments.

Baillie Gifford’s huge holding in IP Group, which took up 8.9 per cent of the trust’s assets at the end of March, has been slashed and Google is now the top holding in the trust, on a more modest weighting of 2.5 per cent.

The managers have repositioned the portfolio according to their thematic approach, which includes investing in companies that help reduce the cost of healthcare, or that benefit from unconventional oil production in the US or the spending power of older consumers.