Lindsell Train, the fund house founded by Nick Train and Mike Lindsell, appears to have dropped £50mn in market value since 2019, according to calculations by FTAdviser.
Lindsell Train is owned by Train, Lindsell, their respective wives, some staff and the Lindsell Train investment trust, which is managed by the private company Lindsell Train Limited.
In a recent update to shareholders in the investment trust the board stated that, using its methodology, each of its 6,450 shares in the private company were worth £15,024.
The confirmation statement at Companies House reveals there to be 26,283 shares in Lindsell Train Limited.
Multiplying the number of shares in issue by the value the trust places on each share means a total valuation of around £394mn.
The same calculation in 2019 produced a valuation of around £450mn for the company.
Train and Lindsell (and their wives) each have holdings of 36.7 per cent of the company, which means their individual stakes are worth in the region of £145mn each.
The investment trust owns a further 24 per cent, with the remainder split between staff in the business, including James Bullock, a fund manager on the Lindsell Train Global Equity fund and also the lead manager on the company’s recently launched US equity mandate.
He has a stake in the company equating to around 0.7 per cent of the total.
The drop in value since 2019 is likely due to the fact assets under management have been falling for the past 18 months or so.
Initially this was because of investors' desire to move away from the growth style of investing favoured by Train and Lindsell as inflation rose, but latterly it has been due to a more general downturn in equity markets.
In its most recent set of accounts, covering the period to the end of January 2021, the company posted a profit of £62.3mn, and paid dividends to the founding shareholders of £35mn.
The business had a turnover of £115mn, but the time period covered by the accounts mostly predates the recent underperformance of some of the Lindsell Train funds and the subsequent outflows.
A representative of Lindsell Train said the valuation was based on AUM and changes in this are always reflected in the valuation of the business.
The representative added that the company's dividends had been a significant contributor towards the trust's positive returns for many years.
david.thorpe@ft.com
