Terry Smith (pictured) has bought £540,000 worth of shares in his Fundsmith Emerging Equities Trust (Feet), increasing his stake in the investment company by almost 10%.
The discount on the £293.8m emerging markets investment trust narrowed from 2.6% to 1.2% over Monday, which was when Smith’s transaction took place, according to a regulatory filing.
The Fundsmith CIO and founder previously held 530,000 shares but bought 50,000 at a price of 1,080p in Monday’s purchase, which was made via Eighth Wonder Limited.
That took the value of his stake to £6.3m, an increase of 9.4%.
However, that still pales in comparison to the more than £200m he has invested in his flagship £16.1bn Equity fund.
This month he also invested £25m in Fundsmith’s investment trust Smithson, which became the most successful UK-domiciled closed-ended fund launch when it raised £822.5m. The global small caps fund is currently trading at a 5.7% premium, according to the Association of Investment Companies.
While the Fundsmith Equity fund has delivered 74.9% over the last three years, second only to the Morgan Stanley Global Opportunities fund in the Investment Association Global sector, Feet Plc has delivered relatively poorer performance.
It has returned 13.2% over the same period compared to 27.9% in the Global Emerging Markets investment trust sector.
Fundsmith Emerging Markets Trust performance
| 3m | 6m | 1yr | 3yr | |
| Fundsmith Emerging Equities Trust | -16.44 | -12.20 | -4.00 | 13.21 |
| Global Emerging Markets sector | -11.55 | -10.14 | -10.74 | 27.89 |
| MSCI Emerging Markets | -11.05 | -9.26 | -10.80 | 39.08 |
