The board of Brunner Investment Trust (BUT), managed by Allianz Global Investors, has announced that lead manager Lucy Macdonald has stepped down and Matthew Tillett, who has worked on the trust for several years, has taken over the lead role.
Tillett will be supported by global manager Jeremy Kent and Marcus Morris-Eyton, a long-standing member of Allianz’s European Growth team.
The changes stem from Allianz’s decision to create a new Global Growth team led by Thorsten Winkelmann, bringing together the firm’s best global equity managers including Macdonald and over £21bn of assets under one roof.
Trust chairman Carolan Dobson praised the ‘huge contribution’ Macdonald had made as lead manager.
‘Brunner is in a good place. The discount has narrowed significantly over the last few years and we have steadily increased the proportion of our shares held by wealth managers and platforms which now stands at around 40%.
‘This in part has been due to our continued commitment to deliver long term growth in capital and income through an investment strategy of high conviction and investment in quality, global growth companies.’
Having raised its dividend for 47 consecutive years, Brunner is one of the Association of Investment Companies’ (AIC) ‘dividend heroes’.
The firm currently has 28.6p of revenue reserves per share compared with last year’s dividend of 19.98p which suggests that even with a high number of companies cutting their payouts, the trust should have no trouble in at least maintaining last year’s payment.
Stifel analyst Anthony Stern described Tillet’s appointment as providing continuity, adding ‘he is a sensible pair of hands and as such we envisage a smooth handover and are not worried about this change.’ Shares were flat at 780p after the announcement.
