The Tip Sheet
Tempus explores whether to buy shares in the historic F&C Investment Trust, highlighting its 700% return over two decades and unique multi-manager strategy. Despite a recent discount to net assets, it presents an opportunity for new and long-term investors. Meanwhile, Questor spotlights AVI Global Trust, noting its consistent performance without relying on popular megatech stocks.

By Frank Buhagiar

Tempus – Should you buy shares in F&C?
156 years and counting. That’s how old F&C Investment Trust (FCIT) is. As The Times’ Tempus notes “longevity is built into its DNA.” And that’s not just in terms of age, but performance too. Over the past two decades, the global investor has generated a share price total return of over 700%, “blowing both the global stock market and the rest of the FTSE 100 out of the water.”
That performance has been helped by a number of factors that, together, help to differentiate the world’s oldest investment trust from its peers in the global sector. First it has a broad mandate to deliver value for shareholders via a portfolio of not just global stocks but private equity investments too – as at end of June, private equity accounted for over 10% of the portfolio. And then there’s F&C’s “multi-manager” approach – fund manager Paul Niven outsources stock picking to specialist teams while retaining control over the fund’s asset allocation.
True, over the past five years, F&C’s +58% share price return is a little behind the FTSE All World index’s +63%, while the shares currently trade at a 9% discount to net assets, almost twice the 4.8% average seen over the past five years. Tempus however thinks this represents an opportunity “The shares look good value for a new investor, as well as long-term shareholders who want to top up their holding.” After all, it’s all about the long term with F&C.
Questor – AVI Global beating markets without the Magnificent Seven
At 135 years, AVI Global (AGT) may not be as old as the oldest investment trust of them all, F&C, but it’s not far off (as mentioned above F&C is 156 years old). Like F&C, AGT belongs to the global sector. And like F&C, AGT takes positions in other managers’ funds, specifically investment trusts, although it also invests in holding companies and Japanese stocks. What links this “eclectic mix” of investments is that their share prices are trading at big discounts to fund manager AVI’s assessment of their underlying value. For AVI is a value investor. And based on its track record, a good one too. As Questor points out “Over the 39 years that Asset Value Investors has been running AVI Global Trust, it has grown its assets from £6m to around £1.3bn.”
What’s more, that performance has been achieved with little or no exposure to flavour-of-the-month hot stocks such as the Magnificent Seven megatechs. Because of this “Questor believes AVI Global offers something genuinely different. It is remarkable that the trust has beaten the global index over the past five years without any exposure to the mega cap stocks that dominate other portfolios. One to tuck away for the long term.”
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