People's Trust manager line-up revealed

The multi-manager People's Trust is due to be launched in September 2017 by Daniel Godfrey, former head of both the Association of Investment Companies and the Investment Association. Now, Godfrey has revealed the trust's investment manager line-up.

Godfrey was dramatically ousted from his position in the Investment Association in 2015, when he tried to implement a set of reforms that would bring about more transparency for consumers. His new venture aims to do things differently. The People's Trust's aims to invest in a portfolio of investments taking account of the underlying companies' wider impact.

"If you are investing in a company with the intent of keeping your holding for a very long time, the company's approach to climate change and its own environmental footprint, to employee development, to diversity, to its tax-paying policies, to pay inequality, to lobbying with integrity, to its own long-term investment in business growth, all of these really matter," Godfrey wrote in a column for the Financial Times.

Its absolute return target is a total compound annual return of consumer price index inflation plus 5% after costs, measured over rolling seven-year periods.

For this purpose, the People's Trust has lined up a handful of fund managers with diverse strategies listed below, some of whom are familiar names to III/Money Observer readers. They are listed in the table below.

The managers will have seven-year contracts and the leeway for short-term underperformance, with a view to achieving good performance and sustainable wealth creation over the long run.

Mark Niznik has managed the Artemis UK Smaller Companies fund since joining the firm in 2007. Compared to other managers, his performance has been in the top two quartiles over the last three years, according to Trustnet's manager databank. William Tamworth manages the fund together with Niznik, who joined Artemis in 2015.

Martin Lau has more than 20 years of experience in managing Asia Pacific and Greater China portfolios and he is the lead manager of a number of First State and Stewart Investors funds. The company is a specialist in Asia and emerging markets. While his performance has gone up and down, his annual return over 15.2 years is 15.5% and over 10 years he has outperformed his peer group by 60.3%.

Ben Leyland is senior fund manager of the JOHCM Global Opportunities Strategy (which launched in 2012) and the JOHCM International Opportunities Strategy (which launched in 2016). Over seven years, he has outperformed his peer group by 41.5% but over the last year he underperformed by 4%.

The two managers who might be less well-known to III/Money Observer readers are Per Lekander from Lansdowne Partners, and the managers from asset management company Comgest.

Arnaud Cosserat joined Comgest in 1996 and is now chief executive and chief investment officer. He is based in Paris and has been a long-standing portfolio manager within the European equity team.

Per Lekander, who will oversee clean energy at the People's Trust, is a fund manager at Lansdowne Partners, one of the largest hedge funds in London.

In 2014, Lansdowne Partners launched an energy-focused hedge fund. For this purpose it recruited Lekander, who was previously a portfolio manager at Norway's Norges Bank Investment Management - the world's largest sovereign wealth fund - where he was in charge of managing the utilities team.

This article is for information and discussion purposes only and does not form a recommendation to invest or otherwise. The value of an investment may fall. The investments referred to in this article may not be suitable for all investors, and if in doubt, an investor should seek advice from a qualified investment adviser.