Lindsell Train trust NAV dragged down by fund group holding
'One day we hope our shareholders will be rewarded by that value and shares will start going up again.'
The trust's NAV actually fell 8.3% during the period, but regained some ground once the payment of the dividend of £51.50 was added back.
Share price total return dropped by 11.3%, primarily on account of the share price discount to NAV widening from 0.4% at 31 March 2023 to 8.5% at 30 September 2023.
Nick Train pledges to 'keep faith' in Lindsell Train holdings as performance lags
These returns compared with a positive MSCI World index total return in sterling of 4.5% over the same six month period.
Trust chair Julian Cazalet, in his last report after eight years in the role, blamed the latest disappointing results, in what has become a long term trend for the trust, on the poor performance of its 24.1% holding in the trust's fund manager Lindsell Train Limited (LTL), and its lack of investment in the so-called ‘Magnificent Seven' US tech stocks of Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Tesla, Nvidia, Microsoft and Meta.
Cazalet said: «This highlights a risk that I have been at pains to warn about in previous statements. It is that our quoted investments are in general a concentrated subset of LTL's stock selections for other LTL client portfolios.
»Thus the company's underperformance is both reflected in its quoted investments and in the deteriorating business results of LTL partly caused by its recent disappointing investment returns across other strategies."
LTL accounted for 38.6% of the trust's NAV on 30 September 2023, and LTL's valuation fell by 11.9% over the six months, reflecting the fall in its funds under management from £18.6bn to £16.4bn. The total return from the investment was down less, by 6%, thanks to the
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