Valentine's Special: Selectors reveal their longest fund courtships

They say the secret to an everlasting relationship is faith, commitment and trust.

In this Valentine's Day gallery, fund selectors reveal the strategies they have backed the longest throughout their careers.

Darius McDermott, managing director, Chelsea Financial Services

"I have supported Stewart Investors' Asia Pacific Leaders since its launch in 2003. For most of those 15 years, it was managed by the incredibly successful Angus Tulloch, before he handed the reins to David Gait (pictured).

"Stewart Investors has a strong team style and an excellent boutique culture. The fund's well-defined process has consistently been able to beat the market over a very long period.

"David has shown considerable manager skill with the Sustainability fund and more recently on Asia Pacific Leaders. Stewart Investors has a strong team-based process. It is simply a great, core Asian equity fund."

Peter Lowman, CIO, Investment Quorum

"One of the funds that we have owned in our client portfolios over the past decade has been the Lindsell Train UK Equity fund, managed by Nick Train (pictured). This fund was launched in July 2006 and, therefore, we have nearly had ownership since  launch.

"The fund manager is unquestionably one of the most respected and followed fund managers in the UK.

"His skill in picking stocks and then maintaining a 'buy and hold' strategy has delivered a long-term track record that is very impressive. Indeed, at the time of writing, his fund has a first quartile ranking over one, three and five years. And while there are not many funds that have a ten-year track record, the Lindsell Train UK Equity fund can also claim this title.

"Nick also manages an investment trust called the Finsbury Growth & Income Trust that has followed his same investment process and therefore has delivered shareholders a very rewarding outcome to-date."

Gary Potter, co-head, F&C Multi Manager Solutions

"In more than 25 years of manager selection, there are very few managers that have successfully stood the test of time and are as driven today as when they started. The only manager that I as an individual (before we developed our multi-manager capabilities at Rothschild and beyond), and we as a team, have consistently invested with over all those years is James Findlay at Findlay Park.

"Having come across James when I was involved in private client fund management at NatWest back around 1991, the thing that struck me when I first met him was the ability to identify true and genuine value in a stock price.

"Despite moving from F&C and starting his own business with then partner Charlie Park in 1998, he has moved with the times and broadened his remit to be an all-cap product from a small-cap discipline. But the long-term results nevertheless have been outstanding.

"He has successfully steered his fund through different market cycles, all the while relying on that same research-intensive discipline with a healthy dose of simple common sense that some less experienced managers today seem to lack.

"A relatively simple philosophy of 'buy low, be patient and sell when expectations are realised' (or rather when the market price has moved ahead of reality) has been the backbone of a philosophy that he has enshrined in his team now – that draws on some extremely competent fund manager capability with more than ten managers and analysts all devoting their energy to one fund. If only there were more such examples."

Neil Shillito, lead manager, Downing Diversified Global Managers

"A fund (or to be more accurate a fund manager) that I have supported for at least 20 years, either in my multi-manager fund and/or client portfolios, is Nigel Ashfield's (pictured) Time Commercial Freehold fund, (and its predecessor the Freehold Income Trust), which has returned 7% p.a. over the past ten years. [Source: TIME Investments.]

"The returns come from owning a diversified portfolio of inflation-linked, long lease UK properties. The fund targets properties with much longer leases, which provide more secure sources of income and lower volatility in capital values.

"Another important benefit of these longer leases is that their rents are usually uplifted in line with inflation. By contrast, rents on traditional commercial properties are usually linked to open market value movements which are the subject of sometimes lengthy negotiations.

"There is also a nervousness about rental growth in the traditional commercial property market. With 97% of Time's Commercial Freehold's rents linked to inflation or fixed uplifts, the fund is likely to better protect investors' capital from inflation."

Chris Metcalfe, investment director, IBOSS

"We have held the SVM UK Growth fund for close to eight years now and while the fund is relatively volatile compared with its peers, the long-term figures speak for themselves.

"Not only has the fund outperformed the sector by almost 77% over the same time frame, but much of this outperformance has been generated through manager skill rather than risk.

"This is a point highlighted by fund manager Margaret Lawson's (pictured) top quartile alpha and information ratios. At £173m in size and Margaret's close ties with SVM, we hope to hold the fund for many years to come."

Gareth Howlett, investment director, Brooks Macdonald

"I have held shares in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust on behalf of clients since moving into wealth management in November 2000. But my personal association with it goes back even longer, since I joined Baillie Gifford as an investment trainee in 1985.

"At this time, I started putting my own money into it via the firm's investment trust savings scheme. Full disclosure: it is one of my largest personal investments.

"It has always been a well-managed global growth trust, but under James Anderson's (pictured) management, it has built a very exciting portfolio of some of the world's truly great businesses.

"In addition, recent moves to increase its exposure to unquoted investments show how seriously the board takes its role as a provider of capital to the Amazons and Apples of the future. This is a way of managing genuine inter-generational wealth which many private clients find intuitively appealing.

"However, it does involve a willingness to invest far from the notional benchmark and shareholders need to be aware that this can lead to occasional episodes of severe relative underperformance.

"In this context, James's recent criticism of the newly introduced Key Information Documents for investment trusts, on the basis that they have generated dangerously over-optimistic projected returns, has been a timely warning."

Adrian Lowcock, investment director, Architas

"The fund I have held the longest is Marlborough UK Micro Cap Growth. Manager Giles Hargreave (pictured) combines his excellent stockpicking skills with strong active portfolio management expertise. He has a keen eye for identifying growth opportunities and knows the small-cap market very well.

"The fund is a consistent strong performer and with its focus on micro-cap it provides diversification from other small-cap managers in this space.

"I like the process Hargreave uses to build up positions slowly in the portfolio and the focus he has on ensuring a broad and well diversified portfolio to minimise risk.

"I have held the fund for about ten years. I hold it in both my SIPP and my ISA."

Damien Lardoux, portfolio manager, EQ Investors

"I have been investing in the Impax Leaders strategy since September 2012 when we launched our Positive Impact Portfolios and it has been a top performer for us.

"We first invested through the Old Mutual Ethical fund, sub-managed by Impax Asset Management, and then in early 2016 we seeded the launch of the Impax Environmental Leaders fund, managed by Hubert Aarts and Bruce Jenkyn-Jones (both pictured), at a fraction of the cost of the Old Mutual Ethical fund previously.

"To me, Impax is one of the leading environmental asset managers in the world, with a proven track record of investing in companies making a positive impact on the environment while generating a strong return."

Clive Hale, director, FundCalibre

"I've invested in Schroder Recovery, managed by Kevin Murphy and Nick Kirrage (both pictured) since 2006, for many, many years – longer than even I can remember!

"I don't try and time my investments in it – if you know when growth flips to value and vice versa, do let me know – I simply hold onto it for the long haul.

"Value managers always win in the end. But balance is important and from a portfolio construction point of view, also holding a growth fund like Old Mutual UK Smaller Companies (another long-term favourite) works well."

Bill McQuaker, portfolio manager, Fidelity Multi Asset Open Range

"One of the funds I have been a consistent investor in over the years is the IVI European fund, managed by Juilian Gould and Adriaan de Mol van Otterloo, which has a strong long-term track record.

"While valuation is part of the strategy's approach, this is more in the sense of what a company's long-term prospects are, rather than traditional metrics based on how cheaply a company is priced. 

"The team has a contrarian mindset, together with a willingness and ability to look beyond the obvious that helps them to identify ideas, which look attractively priced relative to their future potential.

"IVI are also unusual in their willingness to hold cash in the portfolio. This might not suit all investors, but it does mean the fund often has the firepower to add to positions on weakness and can protect on the way down.

"This might be an advantage if we see a more volatile market, although the flipside is that they do less well in momentum-driven rallies."

Eric Louw, senior portfolio manager, Standard Life Wealth

"Since we launched the business back in 2008, we have held the Artemis Income Fund – now run solely by Adrian Frost (pictured) and Nick Shenton following the departure of Adrian Gosden – in our Standard Life Wealth Target Return portfolio as a core element of our UK equity funds basket.

"The fund has generated consistently strong risk-adjusted returns over the long term, outperforming the FTSE All-Share by 1.7% per annum.

"We like the simplicity and consistency of their investment philosophy – that cashflow is key and that a fund with an attractive and growing yield, derived from a diversified mix of cashflows, is likely to outperform over the longer term.  

"We know the team well and have good access to the fund managers for our six-monthly fund reviews, which uncover very few unwelcome surprises."