Bankers Investment Trust (The)
Concentrating on best ideas only
29 November 2024
Following a strategic review earlier this year, the manager of the Bankers Investment Trust (BNKR), Alex Crooke, has concentrated the portfolio, reducing the number of holdings from around 170 to 100 by focusing on the best ideas available across global markets. The manager and the board believe this asset reallocation will differentiate BNKR from its peers, by making it one of the most concentrated investment companies in the AIC’s Global sector. Crooke stresses that this change does not represent a new strategy but is instead a refocusing of the trust’s existing approach. His attention to valuations also remains unchanged. Crooke believes the portfolio now forms ‘a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts’. He is optimistic that, combined with the board’s more flexible attitude to the use of revenue reserves to support dividends if required, the asset reallocation means the portfolio is well-placed to boost capital returns, while ensuring the trust keeps delivering progressive dividend growth. MORE »
Global ‘best ideas’ fund with distinguished record
25 March 2019
The Bankers Investment Trust (BNKR) has re-established its trend of long-term outperformance of its benchmark, after a slightly disappointing H218. While the portfolio retains a cyclical tilt, manager Alex Crooke at Janus Henderson Investors has overseen a gradual shift toward more defensive market areas in recent months. The trust’s regional sub-portfolio managers focus on finding well-managed, cash-generative companies whose growing dividends can support BNKR’s own impressive 52-year record of dividend growth. Crooke recognises the delicate balance between positive and negative factors in the global macro picture, and over the past year has taken some profits in highly rated technology names and kept gearing low at c 2–3%. He expects greater clarity on the macro outlook in the second half of 2019, but in the meantime is taking advantage of more attractive equity valuations resulting from the Q418 market sell-off. MORE »