Currently the market is

If it morphs into a

A positive because as you re-invest your dividends, you will be buying more shares for your hard earned at a higher yield.

The ability to cover dividends, both in the near-term and further out as legacy subsidies end, will be key to share price performance.

BUY

UKW,TRIG,FGEN

HOLD

GRP,FSFL,ORIT

SELL

BSIF on share price rise

Lindsell Train Investment Trust – “Market mispricing AI risk”

• 07 May 2026
• QuotedData

“Market mispricing AI risk”

During periods of global market uncertainty, the companies held by Lindsell Train Investment Trust (LTI) and its manager, Lindsell Train Limited (LTL), have tended to perform well as investors seek durable and resilient cash flows. Whilst some holdings – particularly those in the consumer staple sector – have proven defensive amid volatility linked to the Iran war, growing fears around the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on software and data businesses has hit LTI and LTL hard.

This has been particularly acute at portfolio holding RELX. LTL argues that the market’s assessment is wrong. In sectors such as legal and financial, the cost of error is extremely high, and regulatory barriers make the datasets valuable and essential for the successful application of AI tools. Reflecting this, LTI used market weakness to initiate a position in US credit scoring giant FICO (which was already held in LTL’s Global strategy) in February.

Whilst funds under management at LTL have continued to fall, the company has launched a new $200m strategy focused on international equities, seeded by its substantial cash pile and a longstanding client.

Maximise returns over the long-term

LTI aims to maximise total returns over the long term, while preserving shareholders’ capital. It invests in a concentrated portfolio of global equities that it has identified as market-leading and that benefit from high returns on equity. It also invests in a range of Lindsell Train-managed funds and the unlisted security of its investment manager, Lindsell Train Limited.

Year ended	Share price total return (%)	NAV total return (%)	MSCI World Index TR (%)
30/04/2022	(11.5)	(4.2)	6.4
30/04/2023	(10.9)	10.1	3.1
30/04/2024	(19.5)	1.8	18.8
30/04/2025	10.7	12.2	5.1
30/04/2026	(23.6)	(17.7)	27.0

Source: Bloomberg, Marten & Co

Fund profile

Concentrated portfolio of 13 global equity stocks plus Lindsell Train funds

Lindsell Train Investment Trust (LTI) aims to deliver long-term total returns while preserving the real value of capital. It invests in a concentrated portfolio of 13 global “heritage” companies, alongside selected Lindsell Train funds and a stake in its manager, Lindsell Train Limited (LTL). The LTL management fee for LT managed funds and other funds that LTL manages are rebated back to LTI, so as to avoid double charging of fees.

As of March 2026, global equities made up 62.4% of NAV, with look-through exposure to 49 holdings. The trust is benchmarked against the MSCI World Index (in sterling) but is managed independently, with an active share close to 100%. LTI was launched in 2001 and is listed on the premium segment of the main market of the London Stock Exchange. LTI’s board of directors is the company’s AIFM and receives no remuneration for doing so.

Investment approach

LTL focuses on holding a small number of high-conviction, high-quality companies for the long term. It believes concentration can reduce risk more effectively than broad diversification. These businesses typically have durable competitive advantages and long histories (average age of LTI’s direct equity holdings of around 147 years).

Symbiotic relationship with LTL

LTI has a symbiotic relationship with LTL, helping seed new funds and benefitting from their growth. Its initial £66,000 investment in LTL grew significantly and stood at £28.2m (as at the end of March 2026), peaking at 48% of NAV in 2021 before declining to 19.8% by March 2026 due to weaker performance and reduced assets under management.

Market backdrop

War in Iran has heightened global geopolitical uncertainty

Global market uncertainty has heightened with the war in Iran intensifying geopolitical tension and upending a global economic recovery. Growth expectations have been lowered on the back of the energy price shock and re-accelerating inflation, with central banks being forced to shelve rate cutting plans as a higher-for-longer interest rate backdrop emerges.

At the same time, investors are also evaluating how artificial intelligence (AI) could reshape entire industries and sectors, distinguishing between likely beneficiaries and those at risk of disruption.

Markets have become highly event-driven and volatile, with concerns about inflation, oil prices, interest rates, and geopolitics all affecting sentiment. The impact of the uncertainty caused by both unstable geopolitics and the threat posed by AI has been great on LTI and LTL’s portfolios. We look at both here.

Geopolitical tension

Defensive stocks back in focus

The war in Iran and wider instability in the Middle East has brought defensive stocks back into focus. While energy, defence/aerospace and selective commodity stocks have made substantial gains, other safe haven sectors, including banking, have also benefitted. LTL’s consumer staples exposure has likewise proven relatively resilient in recent months. Within LTI’s portfolio, beauty and personal care giant Unilever was up double-digits in the year before it was reported that it was selling its food business in March (which we detail on page 9). Meanwhile, snacks behemoth Mondelez and soft drinks manufacturer AG Barr were both up in the weeks following the outbreak of war.

All four boast long-term track records of durable and growing revenues and should continue to reliably compound for years and decades to come. In the last period of significant market volatility – at the start of 2025 when tariff uncertainty and the DeepSeek large language model (LLM) launched – LTI and LTL’s portfolio held up relatively well, while tech-dominated indices, including the S&P 500 and NASDAQ faltered. This is illustrated in Figure 1, which shows LTI’s NAV return relative to the MSCI World Index.

Figure 1: LTI NAV total return relative to the MSCI World Index¹

The benefits of its defensive positioning were not quite as pronounced in the aftermath of the start of the war in Iran this year, coming at a time when a number of LTL’s data businesses were caught up in the widespread software sell-off.

Software sell-off

Data businesses suffered large sell-off

Following the launch by Anthropic of industry specific plugins for Claude Cowork in January – targeting particular verticals such as legal and finance – a period of indiscriminate selling of data and digital platform businesses ensued. The concern is that cheap AI tools may soon commoditise data provision altogether or at least impact future growth prospects.

A number of LTI and LTL’s holdings were caught up in this, not least London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) and RELX.

LTL believes that the market has misjudged both companies, underestimating the long-term value of the datasets on which the new AI models depend. In sectors such as legal, risk, financial, and medical, the cost of error is extremely high, while much of the underlying data is protected by clear physical and regulatory barriers, meaning a significant proportion remains entirely unavailable to large language models (LLMs). As a result, trusted, accurate, reference-grade data should remain valuable even as AI tools become more widely adopted.

Figure 2: RELX (GBP)

RELX, which provides services to the global scientific, legal and insurance industries, already offers similar AI-enabled workflow tools. LTL argues that, whilst new AI applications are being developed, the value is less likely to accrue to the models themselves but more to the owners of the datasets upon which they rely. Both RELX and LSEG possess clear data moats. RELX, for example, has amassed over 100 billion legal documents and grows this data daily – the vast majority of which contain proprietary content. This legal data is rarely more than 1%-2% of a law firm’s cost base, LTL estimates. However, it is critical to their function and does not seem an obvious target for cost savings.

LTL believes that investors have overly discounted the long-term earnings potential of these and other data businesses, creating a buying opportunity. As such, LTI has recently initiated a position in US credit-scoring giant FICO (which we detail on page 10).

Investment process

Investment universe of 150 companies

LTL operates within a small universe of potential investments, typically no more than 150 companies, due to its strict focus on heritage businesses with predictable earnings (supported by pricing power and/or intellectual property), low capital intensity and sustainably high returns on capital. As a result, LTI has maintained a highly concentrated portfolio since its launch in 2001, averaging around 15 holdings (currently 13).

Most qualifying companies tend to fall into a limited number of broad sectors:

• Consumer branded goods;
• Internet, media, software; and
• Financials and networks.

Bottom-up approach without reference to benchmark

The portfolio is constructed on a purely “bottom-up” basis, with no reference to benchmarks. Each potential investment undergoes a rigorous due diligence process (sometimes lasting several years) including meetings with management and detailed industry analysis.

Valuation is assessed using multiple methods. Whilst LTL does not rely on traditionally constructed discounted cash flow (DCF) models, its approach shares many of its core principles, particularly in focusing on the long-term sustainability of returns of a company. Companies identified as offering the best value are selected for inclusion in the portfolio.

ESG integration

Signatory of UN Principles for Responsible Investment

LTI’s manager is a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment, the UK Stewardship Code, and the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative. It actively engages with portfolio companies on ESG issues, including climate change, and measures portfolio-level carbon emissions, footprint (tCO₂e/$m invested), and intensity (tCO₂e/$m sales) to assess exposure to climate-related risks.

LTL believes that companies with strong ESG standards are likely to be more durable and deliver superior long-term returns. Accordingly, ESG analysis is embedded in the investment process and covers environmental factors (including climate change), social, governance (including remuneration and capital allocation), as well as cyber resilience, responsible data use, human rights, anti-corruption, and reputational risks.

ESG factors influence portfolio decisions

Where ESG factors are expected to materially affect long-term prospects, they are incorporated into valuation assumptions, particularly long-term growth rates, and influence portfolio decisions, including whether to initiate, hold, or exit positions.

Consistent with its philosophy, LTL avoids:

capital-intensive sectors such as energy, commodities, and mining, including companies involved in coal, oil, or gas extraction; and

industries considered socially harmful or exposed to regulatory or litigation risk, such as tobacco, gambling, and arms manufacturing.

Active engagement with company management on ESG and stewardship issues is a core part of the strategy. Whilst generally supportive of management, LTL will seek to influence decisions where it disagrees with company actions.

Investment policy and restrictions

LTI can invest globally across a broad range of financial assets, including equities (listed and unlisted), bonds, funds and cash, with no sector or geographic constraints. Individual holdings are limited to 15% of gross assets. It may also invest up to 25% in LTL-managed funds (subject to board approval) and may retain holdings in LTL to benefit from its long-term growth.

The company does not invest for control purposes and will not allocate more than 15% of gross assets to other closed-ended investment funds.

Exits

Low single-digit portfolio turnover rate

LTL maintains a low single-digit portfolio turnover rate, with LTI’s turnover even lower. Investments are typically held for the long term, reflecting its conviction in the value of owning high-quality businesses over extended periods.

Positions are reduced or exited only for compelling reasons, such as a share price exceeding intrinsic value, or erosion of competitive advantages.

Long-term holding avoids transaction fees

This long-term approach minimises transaction costs, which the manager views as a drag on capital, and requires patience and discipline to look beyond short-term market noise. Exit decisions may also be influenced by the availability of alternative opportunities with stronger upside potential, with the manager typically identifying two or three vetted candidates at any given time.

Asset allocation

Figure 3: Breakdown of LTI’s portfolio at 31 March 2026

Figure 4: LTI portfolio by location of underlying revenue at 30 Sept 2025¹

At 31 March 2026, more than 60% of LTI’s portfolio value was invested in global equities, with LTL making up almost 20%. Over a third of underlying portfolio revenue originated from the US (on a look-through basis including positions in LTL), while Europe accounted for a quarter of revenues and the UK just over a fifth.

Figure 5: LTI holdings at 31 March 2026

Stock/holding	Sector	As at 31/03/26 (%)	As at 30/09/25 (%)	Change (%)
Lindsell Train Limited (LTL)	Unlisted security	19.8	24.4	(4.6)
London Stock Exchange Group	Financials	14.4	11.3	3.1
Lindsell Train North American Equity Fund	LTL managed fund	13.5	12.2	1.3
Nintendo	Communication services	11.1	14.0	(2.9)
RELX	Industrials	6.4	7.4	(1.0)
A.G. Barr	Consumer staples	4.7	4.0	0.7
Unilever	Consumer staples	4.6	5.0	(0.4)
Diageo	Consumer staples	4.2	4.4	(0.2)
Thermo Fisher Scientific	Healthcare	3.2	2.5	0.7
Mondelez International	Consumer staples	3.0	3.3	(0.3)
Universal Music Group	Communication services	2.6	3.1	(0.5)
Heineken	Consumer staples	2.4	2.1	0.3
PayPal	Financials	2.2	2.6	(0.4)
Finsbury Growth & Income Trust Plc	Financials	2.1	2.1	0.0
Laurent-Perrier	Consumer staples	2.0	1.7	0.3
FICO	Financials	1.7	–	1.7
Cash & equivalent	–	2.1	0.2	1.9

Source: Lindsell Train Investment Trust, Marten & Co

Universal Music Group (UMG)

Figure 6: UMG (EUR)

We explained LTL’s investment rationale for UMG, which it bought into at the end of 2023, in detail in our initiation note and the manager says that this has not changed. Its belief that the Euronext Amsterdam-listed company was vastly undervalued has been proven by a £48bn bid for the company by Pershing Square Capital Management. Announced earlier this month, the deal values UMG’s shares at €25 compared to its previous closing price of €17.05.

If it goes ahead, shareholders in UMG will receive €9.4bn in cash and 0.77 new UMG shares as part of the deal, which would see UMG merge with Pershing Square SPARC Holdings, the special purpose vehicle established four years ago to make a large acquisition, and list on the New York stock exchange. Under the transaction, 17% of UMG shares will be bought back and cancelled while preserving the company’s investment grade balance sheet, and a new dividend policy may also be adopted.

UMG’s shares have been depressed since listing in 2021, with concerns over French conglomerate Bolloré Group’s 18% stake, the postponement of UMG’s US listing, under-utilisation of its balance sheet, and the threat of AI deepfakes on music industry revenues weighing on performance.

The LTL team believes that that whilst AI can generate huge volumes of music-like content, it does not change the value of real, established, and in-demand catalogues. UMG’s ownership of major music rights, where it controls roughly a third of the world’s recorded music (ahead of the other two major players Sony and Warner), puts it in a strong position to push for better pricing from streaming platforms such as Spotify, it adds.

The payout model currently used by the platforms – based on a simple pro-rata share of listening – is expected to improve and evolve allowing for minimum payments or fixed-value arrangements tied to the worth of catalogues. This would give UMG leverage to force platforms to absorb higher content costs or raise their own subscription prices. Changes would likely take time to flow through because UMG needs to align terms across multiple streaming partners, the manager says, but the direction of travel is positive.

Unilever

Figure 7: Unilever (GBP)

FTSE 100 conglomerate Unilever has been a long-term holding for LTL and a consistent presence in LTI’s portfolio. Last month, the group announced it had reached a deal to sell its food business to spice maker McCormick, creating a $66bn company with $20bn of annual revenues.

As part of the cash-and-stock transaction, Unilever shareholders will own 65% of the combined group, with McCormick owning the remaining 35%. Unilever will also receive $15.7bn of cash from McCormick under the deal terms. It has been structured as a so-called Reverse Morris Trust, which allows the parent company (Unilever) to minimise its tax liabilities on the disposal if it retains a majority stake in the divested enterprise.

Unilever says that the deal, which is expected to complete by mid-2027 subject to McCormick shareholder approval, will transform the company from a multi-category conglomerate into a more focused, pureplay beauty and personal care company. The division accounts for a large portion of group revenues and is seen as faster-growing sectors.

Unilever has been pivoting away from food over the past decade to focus on beauty and wellbeing categories – last year spinning-off its Magnum ice cream holding into an independent entity.

Shareholders reacted negatively towards the McCormick deal, with its share price falling heavily since first being reported in March. LTI had reduced its position in Unilever earlier in the year, before the price weakened. The manager believes that the greater attraction of Unilever’s household and personal care portfolio has put selling pressure on the remains of Unilever’s food business. It thinks that it is this, rather than the merits of the deal, that has negatively impacted Unilever’s share price.

FICO

Figure 8: FICO (USD)

Partly funded by the exit of Unilever’s Magnum ice cream business noted above, LTI initiated a 2% holding in US-listed credit scoring giant FICO in February. It has been a constituent of LTL’s global equity portfolio since 2022, and the manager took advantage of share price weakness linked to the perceived threat from AI to add to its position.

FICO has two core businesses: the credit scores segment and the software arm. LTL notes that much of FICO’s growth has come from pricing power, with significant further room to raise prices after decades of undercharging. It believes that the scores business still has a large growth runway ahead of it, with opportunities to increase pricing and tweak its charging model, as well as capturing more of the value chain. Meanwhile, the software business’s shift to a new cloud-based platform has presented it with greater opportunities to cross-sell its risk and fraud prevention services.

LTL believes the AI disruption fears are misplaced in FICO’s case due to the sensitivity and protection given to the underlying bureau data and the regulatory burden around the scores themselves.

Diageo

Figure 9: Diageo (GBP)

A major recent development at drinks giant Diageo was the announcement of the halving of its dividend. New chief executive Dave Lewis said the company had taken the decision to reduce the pay-out in order to strengthen its balance sheet and drive long-term growth.

Lewis had been appointed earlier this year to turnaround the ailing company, which owns some of the best-selling premium spirit brands globally but has suffered a collapse in its share price since its peak in 2021. The dollar-based company declared an interim dividend of 20 cents per share in half-year results, down from 40.5 cents. Going forward, it said it would target paying 30-50% of earnings with a minimum annual dividend of 50 cents.

LTL says that it supports the dividend cut, providing it helps protect the balance sheet and avoids more damaging actions like selling valuable assets. Whilst acknowledging the disappointment, it believes that the core long-term strengths of the business remain intact: strong brands, durable market positions, and growth potential in markets such as India.

Diageo’s share price weakness has been exacerbated recently, with the company being uniquely hit by Trump’s tariffs, as a significant portion of its products are imported into the US from Mexico and Canada. Another concern for shareholders stems from the fact that people are drinking less. The manager says that the data points to a more nuanced story, however.

LTL

LTI’s performance is still largely determined by that of its largest exposure, LTL, which at the end of March 2026 accounted for 19.8% of the portfolio, down from 24.5% six months earlier. LTL has experienced substantial investor outflows in recent years. Funds under management (FUM) at LTL have fallen to £9.8bn in September 2025, from a peak of £24.3bn in July 2021. Annual management fees make up almost 99% of LTL’s total revenues and 80% of net profits are paid to shareholders in dividends, meaning that the contribution made by LTL to LTI’s revenues remains considerable.

One positive development amid declining FUM is the recent launch of a new international strategy (EAFE) focused on the developed world excluding the US, which complements LTL’s four existing strategies spanning global, UK, Japan and North American equities. LTL says that this strategy has been under consideration for some time, but current market valuations and growing demand for international equities made the timing particularly compelling.

Alongside the establishment of an International LLC (funded with balance sheet capital) a longstanding client also seeded the strategy through two segregated mandates. As a result, the strategy has launched with over $200m in AUM. The strategy will be co-managed by James Bullock and Ben van Leeuwen (profiles of whom can be found on page 16).

Performance

Direct comparisons with benchmarks and the global investment companies peer group are difficult to make due to LTI’s unique investment policy and the concentrated nature of its portfolio. Figure 10 shows that LTI’s NAV has fallen sharply over the past year relative to both its peer group and the MSCI World Index, as FUM at LTL has fallen further and sentiment towards its software holdings was hit by AI disruption fears.

Figure 10: LTI NAV total return performance relative to benchmark and peer group¹

Despite the poor performance over five years, LTI’s 10-year NAV total return is still greater than both the peer group and the benchmark, as shown in Figure 11, reflecting the exceptional contribution of LTL in prior years.

Figure 11: Cumulative total return performance over periods ending 30 April 2026

	6 months (%)	1 year (%)	3 years (%)	5 years (%)	10 years (%)
LTI share price	(14.6)	(23.6)	(31.9)	(46.3)	43.2
LTI NAV	(19.3)	(17.7)	(6.0)	(0.9)	262.2
MSCI World Index	3.3	27.0	58.6	73.9	254.9
Peer group average NAV	1.4	20.9	44.8	67.6	241.1

Source: Bloomberg, Marten & Co. Note 1) peer group is defined below.

Peer group analysis

Figure 12: Peer group comparative data as at 5 May 2026

	Premium / (discount) (%)	Dividend yield (%)	Ongoing charge (%)	Market cap (£m)
Lindsell Train	(15.6)	7.0	0.80	120
Alliance Witan	(5.5)	2.2	0.47	4,823
AVI Global Trust	(8.4)	1.8	0.85	1,024
Bankers	(7.7)	2.0	0.51	1,313
Brunner	(8.3)	1.7	0.61	644
F&C	(8.1)	1.3	0.45	6,115
Mid Wynd	(1.7)	1.1	0.64	211
Monks	(5.4)	0.0	0.43	2,447
Scottish Mortgage	3.5	0.3	0.31	15,568
Sector median	(6.5)	1.9	0.56	3,585
LTI rank	9/9	1/9	8/9	9/9

Source: QuotedData website

Up-to-date information on LTI and its peers is available on our website

LTI is a constituent of the AIC’s Global sector, which is currently comprises nine companies. LTI’s discount is the widest among the peer group, while its dividend yield is far higher than the peer group median due to its unique structure and revenue contribution from LTL. The ongoing charges ratio is at the top end of this peer group, reflecting its small market cap (the smallest in the peer group), although we would argue that none of these charges are particularly high.

Figure 13: Peer group cumulative NAV total return data as at 30 April 2026

	6 months	1 year	3 years	5 years	10 years
Lindsell Train	(19.3)	(17.7)	(6.0)	(0.9)	262.2
Alliance Witan	0.2	14.2	36.5	71.9	190.7
AVI Global Trust	1.4	13.1	40.7	88.6	205.1
Bankers	3.7	27.5	44.3	68.4	204.3
Brunner	5.1	22.0	42.5	98.0	214.5
F&C	3.6	24.9	55.8	94.4	242.2
Mid Wynd	(8.3)	1.4	8.3	24.3	143.4
Monks	0.2	29.3	52.2	49.1	254.3
Scottish Mortgage	5.2	35.2	78.3	46.3	474.0
Sector median	1.4	20.9	44.8	67.6	241.1
AGT rank	9/9	9/9	9/9	9/9	2/9

Source: Bloomberg, Marten & Co

Dividend

Figure 14: LTI dividend history

LTI’s dividend is largely funded by the revenue income it receives from LTL, which accounts for around 72% of LTI’s total revenue. With FUM at LTL continuing to decline, further pressure in LTI’s dividend has become inevitable. For 2025, the dividend was £42 per share, down 18.4% on 2024. Further declines in LTL’s FUM will impact LTI’s future dividend, unless the board decides to draw upon revenue reserves, which seems unlikely.

Premium/(discount)

Figure 15: LTI discount over five years

LTI’s discount has moved within a range of 10.4% to 24.7% and averaged 17.5% over the 12 months ended 30 April 2026. As of publishing, the company’s discount had narrowed to 15.6%.

As we have discussed, LTL’s quality-focused investing style has been out of favour for some time and has contributed to LTI’s wider discount, while the continued shrinking of FUM at LTL has also been a significant factor.

The board has indicated that it believes using share buybacks as a tool to reduce the discount would prove ineffective. To fund a buyback programme, the company would need to sell existing quoted investments, which would result in an increase in LTL’s percentage weighting within LTI’s portfolio and an increased expense ratio for remaining shareholders.

Fees and costs

Investment management fee of 0.6% of the lower of market cap or NAV

Under the terms of the investment management agreement, Lindsell Train Limited is entitled to receive an annual fee of 0.6%, calculated on the lower of adjusted market capitalisation or adjusted NAV. In the year to 31 March 2025, the manager was paid £819,000 (2024: £976,000).

The manager is also entitled to receive a performance fee, which is calculated annually at a rate of 10% of the value of any positive relative performance versus the benchmark in a financial year. Relative performance is measured by taking the lower of the NAV or average market price, taking into account dividends, at the end of each financial year and comparing the percentage annual change with the total return of the benchmark. A performance fee will only be paid out if the annual change is both above the benchmark and is a positive figure. No performance fee has been paid since 2021.

For the year ended 31 March 2025, LTI’s ongoing charges ratio was 0.80% (2024: 0.83%).

Capital structure

LTI has a simple capital structure with one class of ordinary share in issue. Its ordinary shares have a premium main market listing on the London Stock Exchange and, as at 5 May 2026, there were 20,000,000 in issues and none held in treasury.

Gearing

LTI is permitted to borrow up to a maximum of 50% of NAV, but it does not currently use gearing to enhance returns, in part reflecting the size and risk associated with the company’s unlisted investment in LTL.

Financial calendar

The trust’s year-end is 31 March. The annual results are usually released in June (interims in December) and its AGMs are usually held in September of each year. An annual dividend is usually paid in August.

Major shareholders

Figure 16: Major shareholders as at 5 May 2026

Management team

LTL is headed up by Michael Lindsell and Nick Train, who co-founded the business in 2000. The wider investment team comprises four members, all of whom are portfolio managers following recent promotions in March 2026.

Michael Lindsell

Michael co-founded LTL in 2000 and is the firm’s chief executive. He is the portfolio manager for Japanese equity portfolios and jointly manages global equity portfolios. Michael has over 40 years’ experience in investment management, including heading GT Management’s global and international funds. Following the acquisition of GT by Invesco in 1998, he was appointed head of the combined global product team. Michael has a degree in Zoology from the University of Bristol.

Nick Train

Nick co-founded LTL and is the firm’s chairman. He is the portfolio manager for UK equity portfolios and jointly manages global equity portfolios. Nick has over 40 years’ experience in investment management, including as head of global equities at M&G Investment Management. He previously he spent 17 years at GT Management. Nick has a degree in Modern History from the University of Oxford.

Board

LTI’s board comprises six non-executive directors. All are independent of the manager with the exception of Michael Lindsell. The company’s articles of association limit the aggregate fees payable to the directors to a total of £200,000 per annum, leaving comfortable headroom at the current fee levels.

Board policy is for all directors to retire and offer themselves for re-election annually. Neither the chairman nor any other non-executive director should normally serve for more than nine years, although this may be extended for a limited period where it is considered in the interests of the company or shareholders.

As is illustrated in Figure 17, all of LTI’s directors have personal investments in the trust, which we believe aligns directors’ interests with those of shareholders.

Figure 17: Directors

Director	Role	Date of appointment	Length of service (years)	Annual fee (£)	Shareholding1
Roger Lambert	Chair	23/09/2022	3.5	43,000	5,000
David MacLellan	Chair of the audit committee	30/08/2023	2.6	36,000	7,500
Nicholas Allan	Non-executive director	18/09/2018	7.5	29,000	15,000
Helena Vinnicombe	Senior independent director	23/09/2022	3.5	29,000	2,300
Sian Hansen	Non-executive director	04/06/2025	0.8	29,000	1,400
Michael Lindsell	Non-independent director	13/07/2006	19.7	–	1,333,884

Strengths	Weaknesses
Focused investment strategy targeting durable, cash-generative businesses	Extremely concentrated portfolio offers limited diversification
LTI’s differentiated investment approach offers a way of diversifying investors’ portfolios	LTI’s returns can deviate markedly from those of peers and global indices
Opportunities	Threats
Investment approach could return to favour, especially if volatility persists	Focused portfolio brings stock-specific risk
	AI commoditises data provision, negatively impacting LTI stocks

Source: Marten & Co

Bull vs. bear case

Figure 19: Bull vs. bear case for LTI

Aspect	Bull case	Bear case
Performance	Performance trend reverses and investment approach is widely recognised	Momentum-driven stocks continue to drive indices, to the detriment of LTI returns
Dividends	LTI’s dividend yield is by far the highest of the peer group	Dividend falls as revenue income it receives from LTL continues to dwindle
Outlook	Quality, growth investing comes back into favour	Elevated macroeconomic risks and uncertainty over impact of AI make the outlook hard to predict
Discount	LTI’s discount narrows as enduring quality of portfolio companies acknowledged	Underperformance of peers and indices over past five years creates further selling pressure

Source: Marten & Co

Source: Marten & Co

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

This marketing communication has been prepared for Lindsell Train Investment Trust Plc by Marten & Co (which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority) and is non-independent research as defined under Article 36 of the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/565 of 25 April 2016 supplementing the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MIFID). It is intended for use by investment professionals as defined in article 19 (5) of the Financial Services Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005. Marten & Co is not authorised to give advice to retail clients and, if you are not a professional investor, or in any other way are prohibited or restricted from receiving this information, you should disregard it. The note does not have regard to the specific investment objectives, financial situation and needs of any specific person who may receive it.

All comments are moderated, to be included in the blog they need to have to post something positive or negative about the SNOWBALL or your snowball.

The comments need to be in English and not include any reference to porn, as the UK have strict age restrictions on access to porn and there are potentially heavy fines for not following the rules.

The blog uses Word Press thru Fast Hosts and if you can copy and paste you can start your own blog.

I thank you all for taking the time post comments.

All shares fall by the amount of the announced dividend on the xd date.

Whilst in the short term it may be correct, although in a strong market some shares do not fall by the amount of the dividend announced, after every xd date the share price was higher than before the xd date.

In times of market stress it may take several years for the above to be true but true it is, if you own the right share, MRCH is a dividend hero.

But not true if you pick the wrong share.

This Dividend Strategy Beats FOMO, Pays 8%+ in Cash by Michael Foster, Investment Strategist There’s a big disconnect between the headlines and vanilla investors’ mood these days. The headlines? Dark. Investors? Greedy.  Source: CNN The CNN Fear & Greed Index has its flaws, but on the whole is a decent indicator of where investors’ heads are. As we can see here, despite the Iran conflict, they’re giddy. At times like these, it pays for us contrarians to be cautious. For us closed-end fund (CEF) investors, however, this isn’t a big concern. The funds in our CEF Insider portfolio (21 in all, with an average current yield of 7.9%) are run by pros we can count on to navigate overly exuberant times like this. But even so, when greed runs high, it’s easier to let FOMO lure us off our income path. The result could be a situation where we trade too much (or worse, on emotion). Some people could take that to an extreme and even take a stab at day trading. Let’s talk a bit more about that. While it is a little outside our beat here at CEF Insider, a look at day trading is a useful exercise in what not to do when it comes to investing, and why we continue to recommend a longer-term, dividend focused strategy instead. As we’ll see, getting caught up in day trading is at best many hours of work (the opposite of what we want: to be retired!) and at worst a one-way ticket to losses. Yes, You Can Beat the Market Day Trading Let’s start with what should really be the goal of any day trader: to beat the market. A lot of ink has been spilled about how active managers – and I’d include individual investors here – simply can’t do so. This is nonsense. Plenty of portfolio managers and individual investors do beat the market – and they do so regularly. Actively managed CEFs are a good illustration of this, as plenty sport histories of beating their benchmarks. Consider an equity CEF called the Adams Diversified Equity Fund (ADX), a CEF Insider pick we’ll talk more about below. Over the last decade, ADX (in purple below), which holds many of the blue chips you’d find in an S&P 500 index fund, has returned 373%, well ahead of the index’s 316%. ADX Has Beaten the Market in the Last Decade …  And if we zoom out, we see that this 8% payer has been doing this for much longer than a decade. … And in the Longer Run, Too  Market outperformance gets even easier when you look beyond stocks, to assets like real estate investment trusts (REITs), corporate bonds and municipal bonds. CEFs offer another example here, with another CEF Insider holding, the 12.4%-yielding Nuveen Real Asset Income and Growth Fund (JRI), posting a total return far larger than its REIT benchmark over the last three years, as REITs regained their footing following the 2022 interest-rate spike: 12.4%-Paying REIT CEF Beats Its Index  But let’s keep the focus on day trading. What I’m trying to show above is that it is possible for a “human” manager to beat their index. So it’s possible for day trader, too. Where to Start – and How It Usually Ends A good place to start is the field you know best. Let’s consider a hypothetical investor who is a retired HVAC engineer. Could that expertise help them identify strong HVAC firms better than a Harvard-educated investment banker could? Of course. Which is why investment banks hire firms to help them gain the expertise of people skilled in one field. Our investor, as a day trader, might be able to cut out the middleman – the banks collecting all that expertise – and beat the market. Even so, the math says day trading is still unlikely to work out in the end. Let’s say another investor has a million dollars and invests in an index fund with an average annualized return of 8.5% – more or less the stock market’s long-term return. For our day-trading scenario, let’s be (very) generous and say a 15% average annualized return is on the table here.  Source: CEF Insider Bearing these assumptions in mind, the difference in favor of day trading is $65,000 – a lot of cash, I’ll admit. But let’s translate that into time. US stock markets are open 6.5 hours a day, five days a week, with few days off. That translates to 1,631.5 hours a year of work, meaning you’ve earned a bit less than $40 an hour. If that’s more than you earn now and you’re 100% confident you won’t make a mistake you can’t recover from – great. But even under these circumstances, we need to be clear that we haven’t found financial independence here. We’ve just found a new full-time job as an asset manager. Of course, any day trader will tell you that they don’t just work during market hours, so that $40 per hour will be less. We can fix this by earning a bigger return: The day trader who is confident they will earn 150% annually, on average (an extreme figure, to be sure), would make $867 an hour for their labor on a million-dollar investment. Impressive, I suppose, although many in finance earn more doing things that are much less stressful. But clearly, no matter how good we are at it or how much money we can make, day trading is a job, and the risk is much greater when it’s with our own money. The Passive-Income Alternative With dividend yields averaging over 7%, CEFs are a far better approach for just about all investors because they “translate” long-term capital gains from stocks and other assets into an income stream. That 7% is actually an understatement: It’s dragged down by a lot of municipal-bond CEFs that yield less, but since their income is tax-free for most Americans, tend to be the equivalent of around 8% for median US earners (and more for higher earners). Equity CEFs, for their part, average an 8% yield over the long term. That’s key because it means we can get the 8.5% annualized profits of the stock market almost entirely in the form of dividends. The aforementioned 8%-yielding ADX is a good example of this, delivering nearly the market’s return in payouts. Over the last 15 years, ADX has paid out a total of $21.25 per share in dividends. Investors who bought then and have collected payouts since have earned a 12.3% yield on their initial investment. Also, ADX shares are now 108% higher than they were 15 years ago, as I write this. So on top of that 12.3% yield, they’re sitting on gains that have more than doubled their investment. Finally, what we like the most is the lower risk involved. One major mistake with day trading can wipe out a trader’s life savings; ADX has been a profitable company since 1854 and a profitable CEF since 1929. While hundreds of day traders are ruined every year, ADX has held fast through ups and downs over more than a century. Which is why we at CEF Insider continue to see buying quality CEFs, holding for the long term and collecting their high dividends as a much better way to go. 4 Cheap CEFs Yielding 10% as AI Reshapes the Economy Many investors still see day traders as heroes. We saw this in the GameStop fiasco, and the meme-stock trend that still persists today. They don’t see the hours and hours of work needed – or the high failure rates. It reminds me of the misconceptions around AI.

Also, ADX shares are now 108% higher than they were 15 years ago, as I write this. So on top of that 12.3% yield, they’re sitting on gains that have more than doubled their investment.

🧭 Balanced UK Dividend‑Income ETF Strategy

A balanced blend uses three equal‑purpose pillars:

• UK high‑yield for strong GBP income
• Global high‑dividend for diversification
• Quality dividend growth for long‑term resilience

This avoids yield traps, avoids over‑concentration in the UK, and avoids relying on global growth alone.

🇬🇧 1. UK High‑Yield Core (Income Anchor)

Purpose: Strong GBP income + home‑market familiarity

Typical characteristics:

• Higher yields than global markets
• Concentrated in financials, energy, utilities
• Good for predictable cashflow

This bucket provides the “income now” component.

🌍 2. Global High‑Dividend Layer (Diversification + Stability)

Purpose: Reduce UK risk + broaden sector exposure

Why it matters:

• UK market is only ~4% of global equities
• Global dividend ETFs add US healthcare, European staples, Asian financials
• Helps smooth out UK‑specific volatility

This bucket provides the “income everywhere” component.

🧬 3. Quality Dividend Growth (Future‑Proofing)

Purpose: Protect the future income stream

Characteristics:

• Screens for profitability, balance‑sheet strength, and dividend sustainability
• Avoids yield traps
• Historically strong long‑term performance

This bucket provides the “income that grows” component.

🧱 Balanced Allocation Blueprint

Here’s the clean, balanced structure:

Bucket	Purpose	Suggested Weight
UK High‑Yield Core	Strong GBP income	35%
Global High‑Dividend	Diversification + stability	40%
Quality Dividend Growth	Long‑term resilience	25%

Why these weights work:

• Keeps the UK as the anchor, but not dominant
• Global high‑dividend provides the broadest stability
• Quality growth ensures future income rises, not stagnates

📅 Income Timing (Smooth Cashflow)

Most dividend ETFs pay quarterly, but mixing them creates a smoother pattern.

Typical payout rhythm:

• UK high‑yield ETFs → quarterly
• Global high‑dividend ETFs → quarterly
• Quality dividend ETFs → quarterly or semi‑annual

With three buckets, you get staggered payouts that feel close to monthly.

🔍 What this balanced blend gives you

• Strong yield without chasing risky high‑yield traps
• Global diversification to reduce UK concentration risk
• Dividend growth to protect purchasing power
• Smoother income through staggered distributions
• Lower volatility than a pure UK or pure high‑yield strategy

🧭 High‑Yield‑Leaning Balanced Dividend ETF Strategy

To increase yield without blowing up risk, we adjust the three‑pillar structure like this:

• More weight to UK high‑yield (because UK yields are structurally high)
• Keep global high‑dividend strong (to avoid UK over‑concentration)
• Slightly reduce quality‑growth (still essential, but less yield‑rich)

This gives you more income today, while still protecting the long‑term engine.

🧱 Allocation Blueprint — High‑Yield Tilt

Bucket	Purpose	Weight (High‑Yield Tilt)
UK High‑Yield Core	Maximum GBP income	45%
Global High‑Dividend	Diversification + stability	35%
Quality Dividend Growth	Future‑proofing	20%

Why this works

• UK high‑yield ETFs often sit in the 4.5–6% yield range, so increasing this bucket boosts cashflow immediately.
• Global high‑dividend ETFs keep you from being over‑exposed to UK banks, energy, and utilities.
• Quality‑growth stays in the mix to prevent the portfolio from becoming a “yield trap magnet.”

🇬🇧 1. UK High‑Yield Core (45%) — Your Income Engine

This is where the yield lives. UK markets are structurally high‑yield because of their sector mix (financials, energy, staples).

This bucket gives you:

• Strong GBP income
• High payout ratios
• Familiar UK names
• Lower currency risk

🌍 2. Global High‑Dividend (35%) — Your Stability Layer

This prevents the portfolio from becoming “too UK.”

Global high‑dividend exposure adds:

• US healthcare
• European consumer staples
• Asian financials
• Broader sector balance

This smooths volatility and reduces the risk of UK‑specific dividend cuts.

🧬 3. Quality Dividend Growth (20%) — Your Safety Net

Even in a high‑yield tilt, you still need:

• Strong balance sheets
• Sustainable payout ratios
• Companies that raise dividends over time

This protects the portfolio from stagnation and inflation erosion.

📅 Income Timing — Smoother Cashflow

With three buckets, you get staggered quarterly payouts that feel close to monthly.

Typical pattern:

• UK high‑yield → quarterly
• Global high‑dividend → quarterly
• Quality dividend → quarterly or semi‑annual

The result: regular, predictable income.

🔍 What You Gain With This High‑Yield Tilt

• Higher overall yield than the balanced version
• Still diversified across UK + global markets
• Still protected by quality screens
• Still future‑proofed by dividend growth
• Still stable enough for long‑term compounding

It’s the sweet spot between “I want more income now” and “I don’t want to blow up my portfolio.”

Perfect — let’s build you a clean, powerful, UK‑focused dividend‑income strategy using investment trusts, designed for monthly or quarterly cashflow, long‑term reliability, and discount‑driven upside.

This is not financial advice, but a structured framework you can use to think like an income‑focused portfolio architect.

Core idea: Blend reliable dividend growers, high‑yield credit/infrastructure, and discount‑opportunistic trusts to create a stable, rising income stream.

Below is the full blueprint.

🏛 1. Define the income style you want

There are three main “income personalities” in the UK trust universe:

A) Reliability First — “Never cut, always pay”

These are the Dividend Heroes and Next Generation Dividend Heroes — trusts with 20–50+ years of rising dividends.

Use these for:

• Stability
• Predictability
• Inflation‑beating dividend growth

B) High Yield — “Pay me now”

These are infrastructure, credit, property, and alternative‑income trusts. They pay 6–10% yields, but dividends may be flat or variable.

Use these for:

• High monthly/quarterly income
• Cashflow today

C) Discount Hunters — “Buy £1 for 70p”

Many UK trusts trade at 10–30% discounts. Buying at a discount boosts:

• Yield on cost
• Long‑term total return
• Potential discount narrowing gains

Use these for:

• Opportunistic value
• Long‑term compounding

🧱 2. Build the structure: The 40/40/20 Model

This is the most balanced UK income structure:

40% — Dividend Heroes (Stability Layer)

Purpose: Predictable, rising income Characteristics:

• 20–50 years of consecutive dividend increases
• Global equity exposure
• Lower volatility

This layer is your “income backbone”.

40% — High‑Yield Alternatives (Cashflow Layer)

Purpose: Boost yield to 6–8% overall Includes:

• Infrastructure
• Renewable energy
• Specialist credit
• Property income
• Asset‑backed lending

These trusts often pay quarterly or monthly.

20% — Discount Opportunities (Value Layer)

Purpose: Enhance long‑term returns Focus on:

• Trusts at unusually wide discounts
• Sectors out of favour
• Cyclical opportunities

This layer adds torque to the portfolio.

📅 3. Choose your income frequency

You can build:

Monthly income

Use:

• Infrastructure
• Credit
• Property
• Some specialist income trusts

Quarterly income

Most equity income trusts pay quarterly.

Blended monthly/quarterly

Stagger ex‑dividend dates to smooth cashflow.

📈 4. Target yield and growth

A strong UK income portfolio typically aims for:

• Target yield: 5–7%
• Dividend growth: 3–6% per year
• Volatility: Lower than pure equities
• Discount capture: 1–3% per year long‑term

This gives you high income today + rising income tomorrow.

🧮 5. Example structure (no specific tickers)

This is a model, not a recommendation:

40% Dividend Heroes

• Global equity income
• UK equity income
• Asia income
• Multi‑asset income

40% High‑Yield Alternatives

• Infrastructure
• Renewable energy
• Specialist credit
• Property income

20% Discount Opportunities

• Out‑of‑favour sectors
• Deep‑discount trusts
• Cyclical recovery plays

This gives you:

• Stability
• High yield
• Upside from discounts

🧩 6. How to maintain the strategy

Quarterly review checklist

• Are discounts widening or narrowing?
• Has dividend cover changed?
• Are yields sustainable?
• Is gearing rising too fast?
• Are NAV returns keeping up with benchmarks?

Annual rebalance

• Trim winners
• Add to wide‑discount opportunities
• Maintain your 40/40/20 structure

🔥 7. Optional: Build a Monthly Income Calendar

You can create a 12‑month income stream by staggering trusts with different payment months.

Example pattern:

• Group A pays Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct
• Group B pays Feb/May/Aug/Nov
• Group C pays Mar/Jun/Sep/Dec

This gives you income every month.

🎯 One question to tailor this to you

Do you want your Snowball to prioritise

(A) maximum yield

(B) maximum stability

(C) a balanced blend ?

40/40/20 structure, is not a recommendation as your Snowball should reflect and change depending on the number of years you have before you withdraw your dividends to pay your bills.

Quarterly review checklist

It’s your duty to check the next fcast dividend and

I’ve bought for the SNOWBALL 13300 shares in New River Reit for 10k.

NewRiver REIT plc
(“NewRiver” or the “Company”)

Full Year Trading Update

Capital & Regional successfully integrated, operational outperformance and balance sheet strengthened NewRiver today provides a trading update for the year ended 31 March 2026 ahead of its Full Year Results, which
will be announced in June 2026.

● Capital & Regional (“C&R”) assets successfully integrated and delivering growth during first full year of ownership: cost synergies unlocked and London retail weighting increased to 43% of portfolio
● Operational outperformance reflecting continued strength of underlying occupiers and portfolio position
● Continued valuation growth in H2, representing third consecutive half year period of growth
● Balance sheet further strengthened through recent refinancing, which along with disposal activity, has reduced LTV to close to medium-term guidance level of <40%
● FY26 Underlying Funds From Operations (‘UFFO’) per share and EPRA Net Tangible Assets (‘NTA’) per share expected to be in-line with analyst consensus
Allan Lockhart, Chief Executive, commented: “Our first full year of ownership of the Capital & Regional portfolio has delivered against the strategic objectives of the transaction. Integration is complete, all of the identified synergies have been delivered and the enlarged portfolio has generated positive operational momentum and continued valuation growth.
We have combined this with disciplined capital allocation, disposing of assets at book value, executing an accretive share buyback, and completing a refinancing that returns the Group to a fully unsecured debt structure with extended maturities.
Against a more volatile macro backdrop, NewRiver is well-positioned. The portfolio has been strengthened, and we have the platform, pipeline, and balance sheet to deliver growth.”
Capital & Regional acquisition delivering growth: synergies unlocked and London retail weighting increased
● C&R assets fully integrated onto NewRiver’s platform; £6.2 million of annual net cost synergies unlocked
● London retail weighting increased to 43% of portfolio. London retail long-term leasing transactions at +12.8% vs
ERV, +31.8% above previous passing rent, and capital value growth of +2.0% in FY26
● Snozone delivered another year of growth, with full year EBITDA of £3.2 million up +10% year-on-year
Operational outperformance reflecting continued strength of underlying occupiers and portfolio position
● 930,700 sq ft of leasing in FY26; 185 long-term transactions secured £9.1 million of annual rent at +8.5% vs
ERV, +37.3% above previous passing rent, with a WALE of 9.0 years
● High occupancy maintained at 95.0%; tenant retention remains strong at 92.7%
● Consumer spending across the portfolio grew +2.3% in Q4 (to March 2026), ahead of the benchmark (+0.8%).
Groceries (+7.2%) and Discount (+9.8%) within our portfolio remained strong – reinforcing the resilience of our essential, everyday retail focus
Disciplined capital allocation, disposals at book value and continued valuation growth
● Portfolio capital values increased +0.5% in H2 and +0.7% on a like-for-like basis for FY26
● Retail disposals of £110 million in-line with March 2025 book values, including H2 sales of The Marlowes in
Hemel Hempstead, Sprucefield Retail Park in Lisburn and Cuckoo Bridge Retail Park in Dumfries

● A proportion of FY26 disposal proceeds were recycled into a 10% share buyback which was accretive to both UFFO and Net Tangible Assets on a per share basis
● Following the C&R acquisition, FY26 disposals and the repositioning of the Capitol Centre, Cardiff, the portfolio is now 76% Core Shopping Centres, 20% Retail Parks, 3% Regeneration and only 1% Work Out

● LTV reduced to close to 40% guidance and cash increased to c.£115 million, providing additional balance sheet strength £240m refinancing: longer maturities, returning to a fully unsecured debt structure
● New £240 million unsecured facility agreed in April 2026: £120 million Term Facility Commitment (matures in April 2030, extendable to April 20333) at a margin of 190 bps and £120 million Revolving Credit Facility
(“RCF”) (matures in April 2031, extendable to April 20333) at a margin of 175 bps
● The Term Facility will refinance the secured £140 million Mall Facility in January 2027, which was retained following the C&R acquisition due to its attractive 3.5% coupon; delayed draw structure delivers a saving of approximately £1.4 million in FY27 vs drawing the facility immediately
● The RCF is £20 million larger than the facility it replaces with a significant margin reduction