Spencer Adair, lead fund manager of Monks (MNKS) investment trust since 2021, will retire after 26 years with investment group Baillie Gifford next March.
Although his four years at the helm of the £2.5bn global fund have been tough with the group’s growth style falling out of favour, the shares have recently surpassed their 2021 peak having rallied 26.9% in the past 12 months. That’s been supported by a 20.2% rise in net asset value (NAV) with the shares doing better as their discount, or gap, to NAV narrowed to 6.4% from 11.2%.
That’s in contrast to Scottish Mortgage Trust (SMT), the £12.7bn Baillie Gifford flagship run by Tom Slater and Lawrence Burns, which despite a strong rally since May 2023 lows remains 26% beneath its peak nearly four years ago. That reflects Monks’ more diversified portfolio and much smaller allocation to unquoted companies. Nevertheless, over 10 years its credible 291.7% total shareholder return still lags SMT’s 402.7%.
Adair joined Edinburgh-based Baillie Gifford in 2000 and became a member of its Global Alpha team when it was established in 2005. He became a partner in 2013 and started work on Monks under its former lead manager Charles Plowden two years later.
The trust’s current co-managers Malcolm MacColl and Helen Xiong will continue to run the portfolio with Michael Taylor joining them in April 2026. Taylor began his career at Baillie Gifford in 2009 but returned three years ago after seven years at Marathon Asset Management.
Monks was launched back in 1929 with Baillie Gifford in charge of its assets for 95 years. Matthew Read, senior analyst at QuotedData, says the company has successfully dealt with similar transitions and numerous challenging periods in markets before.
“Reflecting this, our view on Monks is unchanged and we still consider it to be a core long-term holding for investors who want some growth in the portfolio, particularly for those that would like a more diversified and less volatile portfolio than say its stablemate to Scottish Mortgage,” Read said.
