New Fund Manager for Schroder UK Growth – The Board of Schroder UK Growth Fund (SDU) announced that it has terminated Schroder Unit Trusts Limited as its AIFM and has appoint Baillie Gifford & Co Limited as the company’s new manager, company secretary and administrator.
The board says that the Company’s long-term investment performance is considerably below its expectation and that, despite its ongoing share buyback policy, the Company has struggled with a persistent and wide discount to NAV. Accordingly, the Board has concluded that it should make the change to implement a new, ‘best ideas’ investment approach managed by Baillie Gifford.
Baillie Gifford is an established manager of investment trusts with a long-term track record in achieving capital growth from UK equities and the board believes that its long term stock picking skills will better serve shareholders.
The portfolio will be co-managed by Iain McCombie and Milena Mileva and will be populated with their highest conviction ideas, providing investors with exposure to some of the most exciting UK growth companies.
The managers will seek to select high quality companies with strong competitive positions which it believes have the prospect of delivering strong earnings growth over a number of years.
Baillie Gifford believes that the investment portfolio, constructed on a stock-picking, growth orientated, long-term basis will be highly differentiated relative to the benchmark and to the peer group of all-cap UK equity investment trusts.
The objective and strategy will not change.