JPMorgan Claverhouse takes stake in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust

JPMorgan Claverhouse has added rival Baillie Gifford’s Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust to its UK equity income portfolio.

William Meadon, manager of JPC, said he took the unusual decision to buy a position in what is the flagship fund of a rival group because he wanted to increase exposure to technology and was restricted by the limited number of such UK stocks.

“We therefore started what we anticipate to be a long-term holding in Scottish Mortgage, the very successful global investment trust with a high technology weighting”, said Mr Meadon whose stake in SMT now accounts for a 1.1 per cent holding in his portfolio.

He added: “The trust has an excellent record and gives the company exposure to stocks such as Amazon, Apple and Microsoft which we expect to add value to the portfolio over the medium to long term.”

Last year Claverhouse achieved a 16.2 per cent total return on net assets, beating its FTSE All-Share index benchmark which returned 13.1 per cent. The return to shareholders was higher, at 21.8 per cent, as the share price performed better, narrowing the gap - or discount - to the underlying net asset value (NAV) of the portfolio.

The Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust is managed by James Anderson and Tom Slater.