Sanford Deland Asset Management’s planned Buffettology Smaller Companies investment trust has appointed four directors as it prepares to get off the ground.
SDL has not officially commented on the investment trust launch but filings last month on Companies House showed the Buffettology Smaller Companies investment trust was incorporated at the end of July.
Now further filings published on Wednesday and Thursday last week show Stuart Sharp, Stephanie Eastment, Pia Skogstrom and Andrew Crossley have been appointed directors. Recruiting the board of directors is one of the main steps investment trusts have to take ahead of listing, alongside preparing the prospectus and marketing.
Sharp is the former Franklin Templeton Investments UK smaller companies fund manager.
His former colleague Alex Brotherston joined SDL from Franklin Templeton, where he had been director for UK retail sales, in March 2019. Brotherston and fund manager Keith Ashworth-Lord (pictured) had been directors on the Buffettology investment trust but both resigned at the same time the four new directors were appointed.
Eastment is already a director on a number of investments including Murray Income, which will soon absorb Mark Barnett’s old investment trust Perpetual Income & Growth, Herald Investment Trust and Impax Environmental Markets, according to her Companies House page. She is also a non-executive director on the authorised corporate director for the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Skogstrom is an associate director at LGT Capital Partners.
In June 2019, Ashworth-Lord told Portfolio Adviser that SDL was in talks regarding the licencing of the Buffettology brand for more funds. He said at the time the launch would take place within the next year and would become the third strategy in the SDL stable alongside his flagship £1.3bn SDL Buffettology fund and the £15.2m SDL Free Spirit fund.
Warren Buffett’s former daughter-in-law Mary Buffett owns the Buffettology trademark alongside David Clarke, an early shareholder in Berkshire Hathaway.
