Fund managers Michael Lindsell and Nick Train have shared a £35m payout after their firm raked in record profits during the Covid pandemic.
The pair, who founded Lindsell Train in 2000, pocketed £17.5m each for the year to January 2021.
And the firm’s highest paid director – who is unnamed, but is likely to be either Lindsell or Train – received a £10.5m salary on top of the dividend.
Payout: Michael Lindsell and Nick Train, who founded the company in 2000, pocketed £17.5m each for the year to January 2021
Profit before tax rose from £73.7m to £76.8m, an all-time high, after the firm pulled in management fees from investors of £109.4m and performance fees of £6.6m.
Lindsell Train now looks after £22.8billion of savers’ money, up 6.3 per cent on the year before due to a combination of customers piling in to their funds and good investment performance.
In total, the firm paid out £48.4m in dividends to its owners. Lindsell, 61, and Train, 62, each own around a third of the company, with the remainder owned by their Lindsell Train Investment Trust and employees. Household-name fund managers like Lindsell Train tended to perform well during the pandemic, as savers who held on to cash during lockdowns looked for a place to invest it.
But the outlook wasn’t looking so sunny when the pandemic hit at the start of 2020, spooking investors. Lindsell Train’s Global Equity fund suffered record withdrawals in March 2020, as stock markets tumbled and worried savers pulled out £377m – taking its total assets to £6.7billion.
And since the recovery began in earnest last November, with the advent of the coronavirus vaccines, Lindsell Train’s funds have lagged their respective indices. But over a longer time frame, the Global Equity and UK Equity funds are strong performers.
