Baillie Gifford has officially taken over the Keystone investment trust in a revamp of the strategy in line with the investment manager’s Baillie Gifford Positive Change OEIC.
The newly named Keystone Positive Change investment trust will be run in line with the £2.4bn Baillie Gifford Positive Change fund, which is managed by Kate Fox and Lee Qian, assisted by senior impact analysts Michelle O’Keeffe and Ed Whitten.
Baillie Gifford is taking over from Invesco. Mark Barnett, who left Invesco in May 2020 after suffering from poor returns, had managed the trust previously.
Barnett had a reputation being one of the UK’s top stock pickers and was a former protégé of Neil Woodford.
Keystone was previously run as a UK equity strategy, but will now invest with a dual objective of outperformance of the MSCI AC World Index and delivery of positive change in areas such as healthcare, education, social inclusion and the environment.
The open-ended Baillie Gifford Positive Change fund, which launched in January 2017, was the second highest performer in the IA Global sector last year and is the second highest performer over three years.
Performance of the fund versus sector & benchmark since launch
Source: FE Analytics
The fund’s largest holdings is in Tesla with a 9.7 per cent stake, followed by Japanese online drug marketing platform M3 and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the major semiconductor foundry.
The trust will be transitioned in line with the Baillie Gifford Positive Change fund, except that it will also investing in private companies and some smaller listed holdings that fit with the positive change philosophy. The trust will also have the option to use gearing to enhance returns.
After a general meeting, over 95 per cent of Keystone shareholders backed the for the name change and the appointment of Baillie Gifford to run the new strategy.
James Budden, director of retail marketing at Baillie Gifford, said: “We believe there will be strong demand from investors for an investment trust which aims to deliver investment outperformance while having a positive impact on global development.
“The alignment of Keystone with our positive change philosophy provides a compelling opportunity to access exceptional growth companies which are also contributing towards a more sustainable and inclusive world.”