100 Club Awards 2014: Global Equity

Scottish Mortgage investment trust

Launched in January 1909, this investment trust is managed on behalf of Baillie Gifford by James Anderson, with Tom Slater as deputy manager. The trust invests in a concentrated global portfolio of companies, with roughly 70 holdings chosen from around the world on the basis of their long-term potential.

In particular, the managers look for strong businesses with above-average returns with the aim of outperforming the FTSE All World index across a five-year rolling period. However, the team takes an unconstrained approach to the portfolio with no fixed limits on either geographical or sector exposures.

Its largest sector weighting is currently to North America at roughly 35.9 per cent of the portfolio, although a further 35.5 per cent is held in Europe and 20.8 per cent of the assets are invested specifically in China.

Performance has also been consistently strong, with the trust – which currently trades on a 2.1 per cent discount, according to the AIC – ranking second in the AIC Global sector across five and 10 years, and placed in the top four trusts in the sector across one and three-year time periods to October 15 2014.

What the judges say

The judges favoured this fund’s low-turnover, low-cost approach and the fact that its managers are likely to stay put for the long term.

Club members

Henderson Global Growth

JOHCM Global Select

Standard Life Investments Global Equity Unconstrained

Witan Investment Trust

In numbers

£3.28bn

Total assets

171.65%

Five-year actual return

0.5%

AIC ongoing charge