Baillie Gifford’s biggest star James Anderson is to retire next year after four decades at the fund group.
Anderson will leave the firm and step down from the £16.5bn Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust on 30 April 2022.
Co-manager Tom Slater will continue to run the trust following Anderson’s retirement while Lawrence Burns will step up to become deputy manager from today.
Senior partner Andrew Telfer said Baillie Gifford’s transition process “is tried and tested over generations” and that the firm had “developed talented successors in each of James’s teams in recent years”.
“James has been central to the strategic leadership and growth of Baillie Gifford,” Telfer said. “He has encouraged us to be ambitious as a firm and has instilled a long term, global and index-agnostic approach to our investing. And, most importantly, James has achieved remarkable investment returns for our clients.”
Anderson joined Baillie Gifford in 1983 and was made a partner four years later. He led Baillie Gifford’s European Equity team and co-founded the £4.1bn Long Term Global Growth Strategy in 2003. That same year he set up the Growth Portfolio Construction Group which he chaired from its inception until two years ago.
Since taking the reins of Scottish Mortgage in April 2000, toward the end of the dotcom bubble, Anderson has returned 1,529.9%, three and a half times higher than the IT Global Average of 426.1%, according to FE Fundinfo.
Anderson said he “couldn’t be happier” to have Slater and Burns as his successors.
“I have huge admiration for Tom and Lawrence,” said Anderson.“They are both thoughtful, dedicated and ambitious investors with a willingness to learn and an outstanding ability to partner with great companies.”
See also: Can Baillie Gifford endure a long-term value rally?
