The board of The Monks Investment Trust and Baillie Gifford have agreed a change of manager with immediate effect following a review of the trust’s performance.
Charles Plowden, one of Baillie Gifford’s two joint senior partners, will take over from Gerald Smith, while Spencer Adair and Malcolm MacColl are appointed as new deputy managers.
The changes mean the £1.16bn trust will now be managed by Baillie Gifford’s Global Alpha desk, with the three managers having worked on the Global Alpha strategy since 2005.
The global alpha strategy adopts an entirely bottom-up stock selection process with a focus on identifying attractive growth companies and holding them for the long term. The portfolio is also well diversified with roughly 100 underlying holdings.
Performance of the investment trust has lagged both the FTSE World index and the AIC IT Global sector average across one, three and five years, while its 10 year total return of 145.42 per cent is only just ahead of the 133.07 per cent sector average and still lags the 152.38 per cent increase in the FTSE World index, according to FE Analytics.
James Ferguson, chairman of the trust’s board, commented: “It is now appropriate that changes are made at the portfolio management level in order to improve performance. Baillie Gifford’s Global Alpha strategy, headed by Charles Plowden, has a well established process and a strong performance record.”
The board added there would be no change to the existing investment management agreement, the period of six months’ notice, or the annual management fee of 0.45 per cent of total assets less current liabilities.
