JEFF PRESTRIDGE: Why Nick Train, Britain’s Own Warren Buffett, Plans To Continue With Lindsell Train

Good fund managers are scarce. Rarer still are those who stay on top of their game for an extended period of time.

Last week I spoke with Nick Train, of asset manager Lindsell Train, who has been at the helm of investment fund Finsbury Growth & Income since late December 2000.

Over this period, he has generated an average annual shareholder return of 9.8 percent. By comparison, the FTSE All-Share Index – the trust’s benchmark – has returned 5.1 percent annually.

While Train isn’t a spring hen – he’s in his early sixties – he’s determined to emulate veteran investor Warren Buffett and keep making money for as long as his clients will let him.

“I don’t have a plan B,” Train said last week, “and I have no desire for a plan B. We (he and Michael Lindsell) just want to keep going.”

Lindsell Train manages £17bn in assets, but Train says Finsbury Growth & Income is his responsibility and is the only fund that has ‘the most of him’ in it. In other words, it represents the best of Train.

While the trust underperformed the FTSE All-Share in both 2021 and 2022, Train believes his strategy of investing in some of the “greatest companies in the country and holding them for a very long period of time” requires patient will reward shareholders.

It’s an approach he’s never wavered from since he took over the reins of the trust. While he admits some luck was involved – and some mistakes were made – the long-term numbers prove his method works. “There’s been no style drift,” he says. “I’m doing exactly what I’ve been doing from day one: investing in world-class companies.”

The names of the trust’s 22 holding companies confirm this. The top three holdings — all more than 10 percent of the fund’s assets — are in London Stock Exchange, analytics firm RELX and beverage giant Diageo. Other major UK companies he owns include Experian, Fever-Tree and Unilever.

“I’ve had Diageo in the trust since 2002,” he says. ‘It’s the world’s best alcoholic beverage store with great brands like Johnnie Walker and Guinness. Over the last 20 years, the share price has risen from around £7 to £34 and there’s no reason why it can’t repeat this feat and go to £170 in 2043.’

He adds: “In the industry I work in, everyone seems to be interested in the short term, the next three months. But I’m more interested in identifying companies that will prove to be successful investments over the next 20 years.

“I don’t know how the trust will perform this year or next year, but I will continue to do what I have been doing for over 22 years in the hope that it will continue to pay off for shareholders.”

Reassuring words from one of the country’s really good fund managers.

Isa has a portfolio of over £1 million – and growing

How wonderful to hear that there are now over 4,000 investors in this country who own Isa portfolios worth over £1 million.

This information, obtained through a Freedom of Information request from financial advisor network The Open Partnership, is encouraging for so many reasons.

It shows the value of long-term investing – and shows that governments do get it right sometimes.

So keep investing in an Isa if you have one – and if you don’t, put one on. You never know, one day you could join the Isa millionaire jet set.

I can’t resist Greggs… and it’s a tasty home for the money too

Although I’m constantly trying to lose weight, I couldn’t resist making a few visits to Greggs while I was away late last month – both during my holiday in Ambleside and during the arduous journey back home on a congested M6.

While I love the steak bakes and Belgian sandwiches they serve, it’s the value for money that keeps me coming back again and again. Sometimes I wonder if they didn’t charge me for everything I ordered.

Nice return: There’s no reason why Greggs can’t continue to deliver for both customers and investors

A few days ago, the company – comprising nearly 2,400 outlets – reported a double-digit increase in both sales and profits for the first half of this year.

Chief executive Roisin Currie said the company’s emphasis on providing customers with value for money is paying off.

While his shares fell a bit in the wake of the half-year results, FTSE 250 share Greggs has outperformed the FTSE All-Share Index by far over the past year.

There’s no reason why this tasty British company, headquartered in the magical city of Newcastle, can’t continue to deliver to customers and investors alike.

Don’t forget to exchange your stamps

If you have stamps in your purse or wallet that don’t have a unique barcode on them, you’ve missed the opportunity to use them. But don’t despair. You can redeem them by printing out a Stamp Swap Out Form on Royalmail.com and then mailing the stamps in an envelope to Freepost SWAP OUT.

I just posted five first class stamps to trade. Given the Royal Mail delivery delay, I would imagine Syston’s banking hub is up and running before I receive my swaps.

Hubs are still the elephant in the room

When an agreement was reached between the banks and other interested parties in December 2021 to launch a series of new shared banking hubs, it received overwhelming approval.

We as a newspaper had campaigned long and hard to introduce such hubs, so we were over the proverbial moon.

Still, the wear time of these new hubs proves to be painfully long. While 76 hubs have been promised in communities where the last bank in town has closed, only seven have opened so far — and two of those were pilots set up before the agreement was signed.

Long wait: gestation period for new bank hubs will make that of an African elephant (645 days) look like a blip

Of the five new ones promised in December 2021, only three have so far opened their doors to the public: Brixham in Devon, Carnoustie in Angus and Acton in West London (which I visited last month).

Number four – Knaresborough in North Yorkshire – is getting closer (a suitable property has been found). Still, the proposed fifth hub in Syston, Leicestershire, is proving a bit trickier.

The delay has upset some residents, including Rosemarie Collins, who now has to travel eight miles to Melton Mowbray to use the branches of her bank HSBC. “I feel like the longer this delay lasts, the less likely we are ever to set up a hub,” Rosemarie told me last week.

The good news, as far as Rosemarie and other Syston residents are concerned, is that progress is being made. Cash Access UK, the organization responsible for commissioning banking hubs, says a building has been identified and lease negotiations are ‘ongoing’. I was told the hub could be up and running by the end of the year.

It’s been 600 days since Syston was told it would be the recipient of a banking hub. I imagine that by the time it opens, an African elephant’s gestation period (645 days) will look like a blip.