The assets under management of Nick Train’s fund house, Lindsell Train, have tripled in just over four years.
In a disclosure to investors in the firm’s Lindsell Train investment trust, which itself is a major shareholder in the fund management company, Mr Train said the assets under management of the firm have tripled since the 2015/16 calendar year, and are now at £22bn.
Assets under management at the end of May 2019 were £20.8bn, and £19bn at the start of 2019.
Mr Train wrote: “Although we say so ourselves, Lindsell Train Limited has been notably successful as a business over the last few years.
"Equity markets have by and large gone up and added to that conditions have turned out to be favourable for our style of investing.
"As a result Lindsell Train Limited’s funds under management have increased threefold since 2015/16, to over £22bn today."
He added: “Current investment performance across our three strategies (Global, UK and Japan) is competitive. But we cannot legislate for continued outperformance.”
The shareholders in the company are the fund managers, Mr Lindsell and Mr Train, who each own 36 per cent, and James Bullock, who owns less than one per cent.
Other staff are also shareholders, and the Lindsell Train investment trust owns 24 per cent.
The Lindsell Train investment trust has returned 300 per cent over the past five years, compared with a return of 82 per cent for the average trust in the sector in the same time period, with the fund manager believing the trust’s investment in his fund management firm has been key to the performance.
Mr Train wrote: “The returns generated by your company have become increasingly driven by the success of Lindsell Train Limited.
"Last year over 80 per cent of the dividends received by Lindsell Train investment trust came from the stake in Lindsell Train Limited.
"And since the inception of Lindsell Train investment trust in 2001 something like half the total return can be ascribed to the gain in value and dividends paid by Lindsell Train Limited.”
Much of the asset growth in recent years has come from clients of Hargreaves Lansdown.
Two of the funds managed by Mr Train, Lindsell Train UK Equity and Lindsell Train Global Equity, were on the Hargreaves Lansdown's best buy list until July 2019.
At one time in the year to January 12.5 per cent of the AUM of Lindsell Train was from Hargreaves Lansdown clients.
The removal from the buylist hasn’t dented demand from those clients for the funds, as data from Hargreaves Lansdown showed the funds were among the ten most bought on the platform in August.
Lindsell Train posted a profit of £45m on a turnover of £84m for the year to the end of January 2019.
david.thorpe@ft.com
