Yes, it’s quite a change! I did another piece about it here in case you haven’t seen it yet.
https://www.itinvestor.co.uk/2021/05/acorn-income-jumps-on-the-sustainable-bandwagon/

I liked the idea of Acorns growing into oaks!

Board level I believe although it’s been the same set-up since the trust was created in 1999 and the board has obviously consisted of many different individuals since then.

Thanks, Tom D. I was happy with the gearing and complexity in a small position alongside another couple of small-cap trusts. It would have been too much for me otherwise I suspect.

And selling is undoubtedly tough – it’s very easy to change course just before the tide turns, to mix my metaphors. But I do find the basket approach can help with these things. By buying a handful of similar trusts you can get a better feel for the overall sector and it feels more natural to switch trusts along the way as you learn more about what seems to work and what doesn’t.

Attracted by the yield, I considered Acorn for the portfolio of a family member about four years ago, but ended up going with another Premier Miton split-capital investment trust, now called Premier Miton Global Renewables, which has been a great success. The volatility of smaller companies make for a queasy combination with so much gearing, and buffering with corporate bonds adds further complexity as you describe. Lots of gearing always unsettles me: my two big losses, Marconi and Candover, were both caused by excessive debt.

I find selling decisions much harder than buying ones: something about reversing a decision that seemed right before and the lingering possibility of recovery.

@J – Thanks! Yes, that VCT has done pretty well although I don’t think M&M have ever been formally involved with it. The discount has been quite wide for a little while now, and has been all over the place over the last 10 years so difficult to know if the uncertainty is a factor with it right now. I reckon it’s more likely to narrow than widen from here but we’ll have to see how things play out.

@Phil D – congrats, sounds like a well-timed exit. The company has often said the income portfolio should cushion the effect of the gearing but not completely cancel it out and I was expecting to see some gearing uplift from a portfolio that trebled in a decade. But without the income performance figures, we’re in the dark really. To be honest, if the income side did nullify the gearing then you could argue what’s the point of having this structure at all. I’m not sure we’ll get much more than a summary of the strategic review but it may shed some light on what’s happened.