INDEPENDENT VIEW

James Thomson has been involved in the fund since its launch in 2001, before taking on sole responsibility in July 2005. He is supported by Sammy Dow, who joined in July 2014.

The managers want to provide investors with capital growth over the long term. To do so they invest in growing and market-leading businesses, whose prospects have yet to be fully appreciated by the wider investment community.

When running a global fund, it is vital to have a way of reducing what is an extremely large investment universe into a more manageable size. In this case the managers have a very clear investment philosophy, which allows them to focus on a manageable subset of businesses.

Mainly they are seeking understandable and innovative companies, with sustainable and scalable business models. However, the success of these companies must not rely on external factors that they have no influence over. This is, in our opinion, a straightforward, yet sensible, approach.

This process leads to some natural biases, such as avoiding restructuring businesses, and commodity-related companies. They also do not invest directly in emerging markets.

The portfolio has fairly impressive historic returns, though there have been occasions where it has struggled, such as 2008. The total cost of investing (including trading fees) is not excessive. However, this is not a strategy for the risk averse and at times the performance may differ greatly from the global stock market.