Recent IC article....
How do they compare?
These trusts take different approaches to wealth preservation. The two most similar in terms of performance have been Personal Assets and Capital Gearing. Personal Assets, the larger of the two, had 42 per cent in equities, 35 per cent in index-linked bonds, 12 per cent in gold-related assets, and the remainder of its assets in cash and UK treasury bills at the end of December. It differs from the other wealth preservation trusts as its equity portfolio is mainly invested in direct shareholdings. Lyon looks for companies that are resilient, and generate predictable and recurring revenues from a variety of essential activities. A fifth of its equity allocation is in the UK, and most of the rest is in the US. Microsoft (US:MSFT), Unilever (ULVR) and Alphabet (US:GOOGL) made up 13.3 per cent of the trust's assets at the end of December.
Capital Gearing Trust had 19 per cent of its assets in equities at the end of January, a large proportion of which were held via exchange traded funds (ETFs). It has 21 per cent of its assets in real estate investment trusts (Reits) and other property assets, 30 per cent in index-linked government bonds, 10 per cent in preference shares and corporate debt, 8 per cent in cash, and 5 per cent in conventional government bonds and gold. Peter Spiller has managed the trust since 1982, making him one of the city’s longest serving fund managers, and he and his team are much respected for consistently meeting their objectives over the long term.
Ruffer Investment Company, which was launched to allow private investors who weren’t clients of the wealth manager which runs it to get access to its process, has been the laggard in terms of performance. This may be because the trust has the highest UK weighting of the four, with 17 per cent invested in UK equities and 22 per cent in overseas equities. The trust has 30 per cent of its assets in index-linked bonds – almost a third of which are long-dated – and 8 per cent in gold and gold equities.
RIT Capital Partners, meanwhile, is a different beast from the others, and has had better returns over the long term albeit with higher volatility. The trust has a degree of hedging, with 40 per cent of its assets in listed equities, 11 per cent in listed hedge funds and 25 per cent in private equity at the end of November. Absolute return and credit made up most of the rest, with North America accounting for 39 per cent of the trust’s geographical exposure and the UK only 7 per cent.
Lord Rothschild stepped down as chairman and director in 2019, having first been appointed chairman of the Rothschild Investment Trust, RIT’s predecessor, in 1971. Priyesh Parmar, associate director at brokerage Numis Securities says: "We believe the transition was well managed and that the new team is well placed to continue to manage RIT using the same capital preservation approach, utilising their deep relationships with selected investment managers and financial institutions.”
Imo there are a few on this forum that don’t really take into account other people’s circumstances, age, other investments etc etc which makes them come across a bit ignorant. There is too much ‘short term’ noise coming from a few individuals that have done well since March and they think they have cracked it.
Let’s see what their approach is like after another 20-30 years of investing.