Nick Train has revealed how he is preparing his £1.5bn trust for Brexit.
Mr Train said he didn't buy a single new stock in 2018, and sold hardly any investments.
The trust is the top performer in the Association of Investment Companies UK Equity Income sector over the past one and five years.
The trust has returned 8 per cent over the past year to February 27, compared with less than 1 per cent for the average fund in the sector.
He said if a fund manager truly believes that he is investing for the long-term, then events such as Brexit are not that important so he is sticking to his guns on the make-up of the trust.
He said: "Take a stock like AG Barr. It is one of the very first stocks I bought for this portfolio, way back in 2001, and I still own it.
"In 2018 it went up by 20 per cent and from 77p when I bought it to over £8 now. During the time we have owned it, we didn't know that there would be a year like 2018, where the shares went up by 20 per cent, but we did know that as long as people want to taste the product (Irn Bru) then the shares would be OK, and that hasn't changed."
Mr Train said there are definitely some shares that would be trading on much higher valuations if they were not listed on the UK market right now.
For example, he said Burberry gets about 30 per cent of its revenue from China, and in the final six months of 2018 the company added a million more followers on Instagram and Wechat.
Mr Train said: "We think, if a million people, very many of them young people in China, think the latest product range is exciting enough for them to follow it, I think that has a value that is worth having for years."
Most of the shares in Mr Train's portfolios derive the greater part of their income from international markets.
But he has ploughed extra cash into the shares of the Hargreaves Lansdown.
As a fund platform Hargreaves Lansdown derives a significant slug of its revenue from the portfolios of clients invested in the UK stock market.
A worse than expected outcome to Brexit may see investors withdraw from the market, pushing the assets under management (AUM) of the firm down, and therefore revenue falls.
Mr Train said he regards Hargreaves Lansdown as a "young company" given the capacity it has to grow, and added: "I think they are a fierce competitor for anyone, and can have years of growth ahead."
Alan Steel, chairman of Alan Steel Asset Management in Linlithgow, said he was a fan of Mr Train's strategies.
He said: "Nick Train is a contrarian thinker, and we like those and are happy to hold them until they revert to average, though we think it is unlikely to happen with Nick."
david.thorpe@ft.com
