Baillie Gifford, 107 years old this year, seems to have time on its side.
After more than doubling funds under management to £117billion in six years, the 40-strong partnership which never reveals its profitability remains a happy outrider in the industry. Contrary to most conventional industry wisdom, it has no shareholders, has grown entirely organically, has 93per cent in equities, and has all its 206 investment professionals under one roof, in the lee of Edinburgh's Calton Hill.
The firm has used its partnership model to ensure independence, stability and long-term thinking, growing to employ 850 while former rivals have stagnated or been swallowed by bigger firms.
Marketing man James Budden had a baptism of fire on his arrival six years ago at Scotland's leading independent fund manager, but has survived to tell one of the best investment tales around.
Mr Budden moved from the Witan investment trust in November 2008, when Baillie Gifford's equity-heavy portfolios had just gone into freefall, he recalls. "In my first month, funds under management fell from £56billion to £32bn - and we proudly announced we were taking on another 12 graduates."
But managers were encouraged to stick to their guns, and the firm has reaped the rewards. Mr Budden says: "In this industry, everybody is tied to short-term horizons which essentially comes back to career risk, and risk of failure at a personal and corporate level. It is important to think long-term and creatively, not short-term and nervously looking through the back door, you have got to look forward."
He adds: "It is a difficult thing to do, moving away from the herd and the comfort zone, but actually if you are clever about it you give yourself a very good chance to outperform."
As retail voice for the determinedly private firm, Mr Budden has been blessed with one of the investment trust industry's outstanding stories in the rise of Scottish Mortgage. The £3bn trust is up 98 per cent over three years and 181 per cent over five years, against rises of 41 and 68 per cent for the average global growth trust, and 41 and 65 per cent for the all-share index, according to Trustnet figures.
Manager James Anderson's idiosyncratic portfolio has over 20 per cent in Chinese equities, and two of the top five holdings are the country's internet leaders Baidu and Alibaba. Global tech behemoths are a powerful theme, and questioned on the controversy surrounding another favourite stock Amazon, Mr Budden says: "There is an argument around corporate responsibility and that is something the team are aware of. He is a long-term stakeholder and has a role in that debate...but James very much likes the company and it is one of our biggest holdings."
Last November the Financial Services Consumer Panel, adviser to the regulator, published a full-on attack on the investment industry, accusing it of bamboozling investors with a raft of hidden charges on funds. There is also mounting pressure for firms to advertise clearly the 'active share' of their funds - how far they depart from the index, amid evidence of high active-manager fees for what are actually 'closet index' funds.
Mr Budden says BG has nothing to fear from such disclosures. "I think it's important for the consumer and their advisers. Where you have a low active share, say 50 per cent or below, that brings you onto charges and what people pay for fund management." He says the new no-commission regime for financial advice, and the transparency rules for fund platforms, have brought costs down, with average total expense ratios perhaps falling from 1.63per cent to 0.75per cent "or on our case more like 0.65per cent". Mr Budden says additional costs, particularly trading, are still hidden from investors but believes the consumer panel's estimates of their size was exaggerated.
Turnover among the firm's 110 fund managers is very low for the industry, less than 5 per cent, whereas many firms see 'star' managers and teams coming and going regularly. "The culture of star managers is quite ingrained in the retail world," Mr Budden says. "We don't have a star mentality we have two people on the ticket for a fund and a team behind them."
Away from any limelight, 90 per cent of Baillie Gifford's assets are institutional, with only 14per cent in UK equities and over a third in emerging markets, Japan and the far east. For instance James Anderson's long-term global growth strategy supports £10bn of institutional money on top of the £3bn in Scottish Mortgage. Rather than suck in as much cash as possible when strategies do well, BG frequently closes the door to new investor to preserve performance.
Mr Budden says the partnership culture breeds patience. "Underperformance is understood and actually is expected, it is over the five or ten year period that we expect to outperform. We are confident that the quality of people and the way we do things will win out in the end."
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