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Nick Train has apologised again for his funds’ poor returns, days before a vote on whether to remove him as manager of his investment trust.
Train said in a presentation to investors on Friday he was “acutely disappointed” that his funds failed to beat the stock market in 2025 for a fifth year in a row.
Train told investors that he felt “the opposite of pride about my investment performance” in the past year, adding: “I feel, frankly, humble.”
The fund manager, who runs the £1.5bn Lindsell Train UK Equity Fund and the £1bn Finsbury Growth and Income Trust, said it was “so galling . . . that in a year when the UK stock market has made some tangible returns I have been unable to participate”.
His UK Equity fund fell 7.2 per cent in the first 11 months of 2025, according to its latest factsheet, underperforming the FTSE All-Share index, which returned 21.4 per cent over the same period.
“If you can’t for whatever reason deliver that investment performance, at least be consistent, at least do what you say you’re going to do,” Train said. “I can’t do anything but apologise about our recent performance.”
Shareholders in the Finsbury Growth and Income Trust will vote next week on replacing Train as manager, the first such vote in its 100-year history. Train, who is a shareholder in the trust, said he would not vote, but that he had just this week increased his own holding.
Train said the trust’s board “felt in the context of disappointing returns, which have got worse, sadly, that shareholders should be given the opportunity to express their views about . . . our strategy”.
The latest apology comes after a difficult few years for Train in which his equity strategy has lagged the FTSE All-Share index.
Train has built his reputation on generating market-beating returns over the long term, delivering 8.6 per cent a year on average since the UK equity fund launched in 2006, above the FTSE All Share’s annualised 6.7 per cent.
The manager, who focuses on backing quality companies that show signs of growth, invests in companies including the London Stock Exchange Group, software group Sage, consumer conglomerates Unilever and Diageo and credit rating company Experian.
Despite his funds’ struggles, Train said he would not be making drastic changes.
“Last year didn’t work for world-class growth companies arguably, but let’s hope ’26 is going to see a turnaround,” he said. “We have no intention of making any substantive changes to the constituents or the shape of our UK strategies.”
He said a number of his stocks fell in the second half of last year as a result of investor concerns over the development of AI and the disruption it could cause to many data-focused companies.
Train said that Diageo had also suffered in recent years, despite a lengthy period of robust performance at the turn of the century. “Trading remains tough for Diageo, and from that perspective, we can understand why the share price continues to be weak.”
