Godfrey announced a final line up including Artemis running UK small-caps and First State Investments’ Stewart Asia team running Asia-Pacific including Japan equities.
Also on the final list of five were JO Hambro Capital Management running global equities, Comgest running pan-European equities and Lansdown Partners with a clean-energy equity mandate.
Absent from the list of managers was Orbis Investments, which was previously announced as a “supporting investment manager” on the trust’s website.
Orbis director Dan Brocklebank told Portfolio Adviser the split was amicable and stemmed from concerns around corporate governance.
“They have a very big social impact ethos at the People’s Trust so Godfrey wanted to be able to vote [at AGMs on behalf of] the securities of the underlying portfolio that he might deem appropriate,” said Brocklebank.
“We only offer pooled vehicles at Orbis so we told him that we would be more than welcome to have the input of your perspective when we think about how to vote, but we couldn’t guarantee that we would vote a particular way.”
At this stage, before the trust’s prospectus has been completed, some wealth managers are understandably reticent to weigh in on whether or not Godfrey has hit on a winning formula or not.
Most were generally impressed with the calibre of the managers he had brought on board and inspired by his passionate advocacy for bringing back long-termism to the investment conversation.
“Godfrey has always been someone who has fiercely promoted the needs of end investors,” said Morningstar Investment Management EMEA CIO Dan Kemp.
“I have no doubt that he has chosen the managers very carefully. Clearly, he is taking an investor-centric approach.”
