Golden Prospect Precious Metals (GPM) has agreed heads of terms to appoint Baker Steel Capital Managers as its new investment manager and AIFM, opting not to follow its former portfolio managers to Tufton Investment Management. The appointment is expected to take effect during the third quarter of 2026. Baker Steel’s Mark Burridge and Trevor Steel will take responsibility for the portfolio, supported by the firm’s 10-strong investment team in London and Perth, Western Australia.
GPM’s investment objective will remain unchanged, with the trust continuing to focus on smaller gold and precious metals mining companies. The managers will seek businesses where exploration, development activity or mergers and acquisitions could unlock value, while retaining the ability to use tactical gearing of up to 20% of net assets.
The decision follows the resignation in March of Keith Watson and Robert Crayfourd from CQS Manulife, GPM’s incumbent manager. The pair subsequently joined Tufton, which submitted a proposal to take over management of the trust. However, following a review that also considered proposals from CQS Manulife and included consultation with institutional shareholders, GPM’s board concluded that Baker Steel offered the best option.
Baker Steel is an independent metals and mining specialist established in 2001, with around £1.7bn of assets under management. Burridge and Steel currently manage a gold and precious metals strategy with assets of approximately £1bn. The strategy has materially outperformed the MSCI ACWI Select Gold Miners Index over one, three, five and 10 years. It returned 69.2% over the year to 30 June 2026, compared with 53.0% from the index, while its 10-year return was 335.6%, against 179.3% from the benchmark.
Baker Steel employs a value-focused approach, combining bottom-up company research with top-down asset allocation. Its investment team includes geologists, engineers and economists, and makes extensive use of company meetings, mine visits and proprietary valuation, risk and ESG tools. Although Baker Steel’s existing precious metals funds tend to concentrate on larger companies, the firm said it already covers most of GPM’s portfolio within its research database. It sees the trust’s smaller-company, higher-risk strategy as complementary to its existing range rather than a direct competitor.
Lower fees
The appointment will also reduce GPM’s management costs. Baker Steel will receive an annual fee of 0.9% on assets up to £250m and 0.8% thereafter, calculated on the average of the trust’s market capitalisation and net assets, capped at NAV. Based on GPM’s average size over the six months to 30 June 2026, the board estimates that the new arrangement would have produced an effective annual fee of 0.82% of NAV, compared with 1.04% under the current contract.
Baker Steel will waive its management fee until the end of CQS Manulife’s notice period on 8 March 2027, avoiding shareholders having to pay two managers simultaneously. It will also contribute towards the costs of the management transition and any move to the London Stock Exchange’s Main Market through further fee waivers. After an initial minimum term, the new contract will be terminable on six months’ notice, compared with 12 months under the existing arrangement.
New 6% dividend target
GPM is also introducing an enhanced quarterly dividend policy targeting annual distributions of approximately 6% of NAV. Each quarterly dividend will be set at 1.5% of the preceding quarter-end NAV per share. Payments may be financed from capital reserves, meaning the policy will not require the managers to favour income-producing investments. The first dividend under the new policy is expected to be announced in July 2026 and will be based on GPM’s NAV at 30 June.
The board hopes the dividend will broaden the trust’s appeal and, alongside share buybacks, help reduce its discount. It argues that dividends also allow capital to be returned to all shareholders at NAV, which investors can then reinvest while the shares trade at a discount.
Main Market move under consideration
The board is considering moving GPM’s listing from The International Stock Exchange to the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange. It believes this would raise the trust’s profile, reduce the cost of issuing shares and remove the current £5m limit on new issuance. GPM could also become eligible for inclusion in the FTSE UK Index Series, including the FTSE All-Share, subject to meeting FTSE Russell’s criteria. Any move is expected to take place after Baker Steel assumes management responsibility but before shareholders can exercise their subscription rights in November 2026.
Chair Monica Tepes said Baker Steel’s sector expertise, resources and marketing capabilities, combined with lower fees, the new dividend policy and a possible Main Market listing, would strengthen GPM’s competitive position as it approaches its 20th anniversary.
Richard Williams, senior analyst at QuotedData, said: “This has come as a bit of a surprise to us. We were expecting GPM to follow its previous managers to Tufton – as CQS Natural Resources has. Choosing a new investment manager instead is a bold move, but the board may have been enticed by the performance of BSRT, which is the best performing trust across the whole investment companies sector so far this year (outside the AI-related players) and has a strong long-term track record with 10-year annual returns of almost 17%. The new dividend policy and lower fees are a welcome step.”
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