Nick Train rakes in £16m despite fund’s poor performance
Despite publicly apologising for the poor performance of his fund, Nick Train has been raked in millions from running the Finsbury Growth and Income Trust over the last year.
The city bigwig brought in £14m in dividends from the company last year, along with an estimated £2.6m for his role as director of the trust, though this was down from £5.6m the year before.
Last week, Train publicly apologised for the poor performance of his £1.6bn trust, which has floundered at only four per cent growth over the last five years, versus a 35 per cent rise in the Morningstar UK index.
Performance over the last year has been even worse, with the fund falling 4.6 per cent compared to an index rise of 14.7 per cent.
Train has become well known alongside rival Fundsmith manager Terry Smith for making few movements within their portfolio, with the former adding only three companies to his holdings since 2020.
Meanwhile, Train’s flagship fund and one of the largest in the UK, the £3.6bn Lindsell Train UK Equity fund, has grown 14 per cent compared to 30 per cent for the IA UK All Companies index.
Founded by Train and Mike Lindsell, the fundhouse manages £15.2bn of assets overall.
Including dividends, directors were paid a total of £8.6m throughout the year, half of the £15.1m in the previous year. Total staff costs from £29.1m to £25.9m.
“What I find difficult to write is not the acknowledging of our poor investment performance or apologising for it. We do acknowledge and apologise for it,” Train wrote last week. “No, what is difficult is finding a credible way to convey to shareholders why we remain optimistic about the company’s investment portfolio.”
“It is difficult, because I am conscious that I have been vocally optimistic about its prospects throughout the three years and more of underperformance. So why should I be right this time?,” he added.
The manager said that the trust’s under-investment in tech and energy had partially caused the weak performance, and noted he had upped the share of the portfolio invested in tech from around 30 per cent in 2020 to 55 per cent today.
Train has previously argued that UK markets are “pregnant with value and opportunity“, despite the “malaise” they are suffering from.