Investment Insights

A Very Long Hill

James Bullock

In 1626, so the story goes, the native Lenape people sold the island of Manhattan, to the Dutch East India Company for 60 guilders worth of trinkets, the supposed equivalent of $24. A famously bad trade for the tribe given the island’s current estimated value of well over a trillion dollars.

Unintended Consequences

Nick Train

Amidst the recent reportage about the winnowing out of the UK stock market, I was particularly struck by William Hague’s article in The Times in March. He somewhat shamefacedly quotes an expert on the pension industry who notes the UK has become “the only major economy where local pension funds have in effect abandoned investment in domestic companies.”

The Triumph of Experience Over Hope

James Bullock

In 2014 Michael Lewis’s Flash Boys introduced the public to the frantic practice of high frequency trading. Orders, millions per second, executed at speeds to outpace or even front-run others. A frenetic world about as far away from Lindsell Train’s languid approach as possible.

Muddy Waters

Madeline Wright

This piece is a companion to an earlier insight, “Scope 3 Under The Microscope”, in which I observed that our ESG work has highlighted a number of themes pertinent to a large proportion of our portfolio companies.

Drinking Less, Drinking Better

Madeline Wright

What does it really mean to say that consumers are “drinking less, but drinking better”? It is an important observation for us, given we have a number of our investments in premium alcoholic beverage brand owners.

Scope 3 Under The Microscope

Madeline Wright

One of the advantages of running portfolios as concentrated and long-term focused as ours is that we are able to dedicate a great deal of time to in-depth research on individual companies.

Rational numbers

James Bullock

At the tail-end of the 19th century, a small-town Carolinas chemist named Caleb Bradham hit upon an exciting new formulation. A marvellous tonic that served as both a refreshing pick-me-up and a remedy for indigestion, an affliction more formally known as dyspepsia.

Lost in the Supermarket

Madeline Wright

In February 2019 something seismic occurred in the world of packaged food – Kraft Heinz took an eyewatering writedown of $15bn on its Kraft and Oscar Mayer franchises, two iconic American brands that have appeared on the tables of families for decades.

Quantifying Quality

James Bullock

Quality is seductive. Few would complain if you labelled their business or strategy as ‘quality’. But as Mr Drucker (the father of modern management theory) points out it’s also elusive and ambiguous.

Are You Experienced?

Madeline Wright

I recently listened to a podcast in which a retail industry consultant, Doug Stephens, argued that "retail is no longer a distribution mechanism for product but a customer acquisition strategy".

Valuation Challenge

James Bullock

Valuations are challenging. Achieving precision is of course impossible, but even the roughest of estimates can be extremely hard to derive without resorting to conjecture.

Reflections on Liquidity and Capacity

Michael Lindsell

Since the beginning of the year the LF Lindsell Train UK Equity Fund and the Lindsell Train Global Equity Fund have continued to grow in size, thanks largely to continued net subscriptions... As the funds grow it is important that we ensure that the size itself does not provide any impediment to the integrity of our approach...