Hi Tom,

It does feel like the knives have come out very quickly for Lindsell Train. In some respect, I think this is just down to how the press works and the fact that bad news sells. After the Woodford fiasco, there was always going to be a focus on who might struggle next.

PZ Cussons is an interesting one. Its share price basically did nothing in the 1990s, staying at around 40p for at least a decade. It then took off in 2001 and hit £4 by 2011. But it’s been in decline since 2013, due mostly to problems with the Nigerian economy I believe, although it’s been growing only slowly in other regions.

I don’t think any material recovery in profits is expected either this year or next, so it’s definitely one where patience will be required. The CEO retired on 31st Jan, having been with the company since 1993 and CEO since 2006.

It looks like his successor is yet to be appointed, though. You would have thought that 14 years was sufficient time to have a succession plan in place, so I would guess he was encouraged to move on by the company’s investors.

It’s still a small position right now, so it may be a few months until we know if it’s going to be a significant holding in FGT or the UK fund.

I think the LT situation has been extraordinary.

Given the vast amount of sub-par ‘benchmark-hugging funds’ around, the Lindsell funds seem almost the last ones that the press and ratings people should be criticising.

The combination of their long-term performance and integrity put them easily near the top of the pile.

It feels like the most cynical type of journalism – looking for another high-profile fund to do a ‘Woodford’ on.

This is not to say that I think they could have a dip in performance – they have had an amazing run, and it seems not impossible that we could see a late-stage bull run, which will lend itself more to tech becoming even more frothy (which will probably favour the likes of Blue Whale and Smithson, on the more quality side of things).

Equally if there is a coronavirus hit to earnings later this year, that may affect some of the Lindsell consumer brands (e.g. see Burberry’s news today on guidance).

However, there are so few fund houses that one can easily trust to look after their clients, and I don’t really believe in market timing, so I can’t see a reason to sell any Lindsell Train.

That said, I’m really curious to hear more about PZ Cussons – I haven’t heard great things about it for a while, but presumably they see a turnaround looming, and I think there’s a recently new CEO in place.

Thanks, Getting Minted. Although I’d looked at them briefly before, I didn’t realise quite how similar FGT and the LT UK Equity fund were. Perhaps it shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise, though.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the LT situation plays out. I have slightly preferred them to Fundsmith in the past as they seem more humble and more committed to lowering costs as the funds get larger. It does seem to me that a lot of folks have been very quick to write off LT after a weak 6 months, which is nothing in investment terms really.