Archived article
Please note that tax, investment, pension and ISA rules can change and the information and any views contained in this article may now be inaccurate.
The AJ Bell Investment Trust Select list is designed to lighten your research load. There are hundreds of trusts out there – so we’ve narrowed the field by selecting a high-quality shortlist of trusts we believe can deliver their objectives over the long term. To make the list, each trust needs to pass our robust, independent selection process.
What have we changed?
We keep our IT Select list under constant review to ensure we have the highest conviction in the trusts on the list and also to see if new funds have better potential to achieve their objectives.
As a result of this work, we have recently added the Securities Trust of Scotland to bring greater choice to investors.
Tell us a bit more about the Securities Trust of Scotland investment trust?
The Securities Trust of Scotland is a global equity income trust which aims to achieve rising income and long-term capital growth through investment in a balanced portfolio constructed of global equities. The trust is fully flexible, being managed without reference to the benchmark, as the manager believes this is a poor starting point for portfolio construction and long term wealth creation.
The trust is managed by Troy Asset Management who were appointed to manage the trust in November 2020. Fund manager James Harries joined Troy in 2016 to launch the global equity income strategy and is hugely experienced having previously worked at Newton for many years.
The manager, and indeed Troy as a house, focus on high quality companies that could deliver sustainable compounding returns via free cash flow over time, which should lead to superior risk adjusted returns. This is possible because the companies are believed to have identifiable and persisting competitive advantages in areas such as brand, scale and distribution amongst others. The resulting portfolio is focused towards large companies and comprises of 30-50 stock positions.
With a focus on generating income, a commitment from company management to pay dividends is important with the ability of companies to pay and grow their dividends over time a key element.
These articles are for information purposes only and are not a personal recommendation or advice.
Written by:
Ryan Hughes
Ryan Hughes, Investments Director - AJ Bell Investments
Ryan started his career in 1999 working for an independent financial adviser, progressing to become Head of Portfolio Management at an award-winning advisory firm. Ryan then joined a global asset management firm as a Fund Manager, where he oversaw more than £10bn of multi-asset portfolios and also sat on the investment and global asset allocation committees. After seven years, Ryan joined a small multi-asset boutique managing portfolios for clients all around the world, before joining AJ Bell in 2016 to help establish our investment capability and overseeing all investment research for AJ Bell. In 2022, Ryan was appointed as Head of Investment Partnerships with responsibility for managing bespoke portfolios tailored to specific adviser needs and then in 2023, Ryan was made Investments Director with oversight of AJ Bell’s investment capability.
Ryan is a member of the CFA UK Society, is frequently asked for his views in the press and on panel debates while also being recognised as one of the leading fund researchers in the UK.