Thanks David – will download that when I get the chance.

Couple of key takeaways (for me at least!)

* Definitely planning to having another go at launching the IT – next year (“it’s oven ready!”) as the hard work has been done – but post US election/Brexit
* Blamed failure of this launch squarely on impending lockdowns
* Planning a global fund launch next year with same methodology. Sounded like it’ll be an OEIC not IT – but I still found this an interesting prospect!
Regards

Just out of interest on your travels did you find any indicator of how much “skin in the game” either of the managers have in their funds?

Thanks, David. Even though the IPO was pulled, I still found it useful to do the analysis. I found this video on both the open-ended funds which may be of interest – yet to watch it myself though.
https://candlewickcapital.com/2020/09/14/buffettology-and-free-spirit-joint-webinar-recording-09-09-20/

Even though I much prefer closed ended funds, on the back of the launch being pulled I am looking closely at the Free Spirit fund as I like the approach (hadn’t realised quite how small it currently is).

I found this interesting comment in the annual report (Feb 2020) which explains the (deliberate) small overlap between the 2 open ended funds:

“…In the summer, we took the decision to reduce overlapping
holdings between Free Spirit and UK Buffettology so that investors
can hold both funds side-by-side without undue concentration at
the individual company level….”

…which explains your observation above.

Keep up the excellent analysis – really enjoy reading articles like this!

Hi David,

Yes, it was a shame. Ashworth-Lord appeared on the interactive investor podcast last week and although he couldn’t comment on how the IPO was progressing, it was very close to the last date for applications so I read that as a fairly good indication it was going to proceed.

Of the three UK IPOs that have been announced recently (Tellworth and Schroders being the others), Buffettology seemed to me to have the best chance of a successful launch. I would be surprised if the Schroder one goes ahead now, especially as it’s yet to publish a prospectus.

I guess whether Buffettology comes back for another go depends on how close it got to raising the amount required and what sort of feedback it got from institutions — which is something that rarely makes it way into the public domain.

However, it does seem pretty rare that trust IPOs come back for a second try so the odds probably aren’t great. I think Hipgnosis Songs was the last one that did and got away successfully.

I’d been looking to get involved with this post-IPO; I’d found your analysis of the potential portfolio particularly interesting.

You think they’ll try again when there’s clear sky ahead post-Brexit/Covid/US election?