CT Private Equity (CTPE) fund manager Hamish Mair is to retire next May after running the investment trust for 26 years.
Mair, who helped launch the then Martin Currie Capital Return Trust in 1999, will leave investment group Columbia Threadneedle and step down as CTPE’s lead manager after its annual general meeting.
He will be succeeded by deputy manager Andrew Carnwath who has worked with Mair for 12 years and who has 17 years’ experience in private equity. Mair will in touch with the team as a senior adviser to Columbia Threadneedle Investments.
Shares in the £357m investment trust dropped 2.5% to 509p at the news. In common with much of its sector, the shares trade on a wide discount to net asset value, but have provided good returns over the years with the listed fund currently ranked third out of 14 private equity trusts with a five-year total gain of 123%.
Chair Richard Gray thanked Mair for his “invaluable contribution” and “tireless enthusiasm” for private equity and the investment opportunities it provides.
Gray said an investor investing £100 in the company at launch and re-investing dividends, would now have £1,085, equivalent to a share price total return of 985% or 9.4% per annum. The underlying total return in net asset value (NAV) over the same period was 1,233% with an annualised return of 10.2%.
“The gains accumulated since the start of the company equate to 12.3 times the original investment,” Gray said. “By comparison the stock market, as represented by the FTSE All Share index, has provided a total return of 339% with an annualised return of 5.7%. A total gain of approximately 3.4 times an investment made in March 1999.”
Last year a study by stockroker AJ Bell showed that CT Private Equity was one of eight UK funds that had been run by the same manager for twenty years which had outperformed Berkshire Hathaway, the US investment conglomerate managed by world-famous value investor Warren Buffett.
Our view
James Carthew, head of investment company research at QuotedData, said: “I am sorry to see Hamish Mair retire from CT Private Equity. I can remember the trust being spun out of Scottish Eastern in 1999 and Mair did a great job of managing it, building up an impressive track record. The last few years have been more difficult, reflecting a slowing of exits within the sector, but there are encouraging signs of that changing. We had Andrew Carnwath on the show for our private equity special in August. I think the trust remains in good hands.”
