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Welcome to The Two Johns, the new investment trust podcast brought to you by the website www.johnbaronportfolios.co.uk. Each month, John Baron will be joining former Investors' Chronicle editor John Hughman to discuss the big themes dominating the investment landscape and the important issues affecting the sector, while explaining how these are influencing the way the website's ten live investment...

HHI is an investment company that aims to provide high income and capital growth by investing primarily in UK equities and fixed interest assets. Managed by Janus Henderson Investors, the company focuses on companies that offer strong dividend yields, sustainable earnings, and potential for long-term growth. It diversifies its portfolio across various sectors, blending larger, well-established com...

MRCH is a long-established investment company that has been providing dependable income and long-term capital growth for its shareholders since 1889. Managed by Allianz Global Investors, the company runs a diversified portfolio of high-quality, predominantly UK-listed companies with strong balance sheets and consistent dividend histories. Its primary objective is to deliver a rising income to inve...

Established in 1996, EOT is a European focused investment company which looks for what it describes as ‘special’ growth companies that are expected to experience higher than average earnings growth. The managers take a conviction approach, running a portfolio of between 25 and 35 positions. In this interview we speak to Chief Investment Officer Alexander Darwall about the company’s investment phil...

RTW is a listed investment company focused on advancing medical innovation in order to transform patients' lives. Established in October 2019, it has become the second-largest biotech fund in London after acquiring investment company peer Arix Bioscience at the start of 2024. The company's objective is long-term capital appreciation by forming, building, and supporting world-class biotech, biophar...

HGEN is an investment company that aims to deliver capital growth by investing in hydrogen-focused assets while integrating ESG principles. The diversified portfolio includes clean hydrogen supply, large-scale energy storage, carbon capture, hydrogen distribution, electrolysers, fuel cells, and hydrogen applications in transport, power generation, and heat. Investments are divided into Private Hyd...

SDP offers investors exposure to Asian equities (ex-Japan), targeting long-term growth. The fund, managed by Richard Sennitt and Abbas Barkhordar, employs a bottom-up, stock-picking approach, focusing on quality companies that can sustainably generate returns above their cost of capital. This strategy has enabled the fund to outperform the MSCI All Country Asia excluding Japan Index and other deve...

OCI is a private equity investment trust managed by Oakley Capital. The trust aims to deliver long-term capital appreciation by investing in middle-market companies across Western Europe, focusing on sectors such as technology, consumer, and education. Known for its hands-on investment approach, Oakley Capital Investments partners with dynamic, high-growth businesses, often supporting them with st...

HSL focuses on achieving long-term capital growth by investing predominantly in UK smaller companies. Established in 1887, the trust aims to outperform the Numis Smaller Companies Index (excluding Investment Companies). Its diversified portfolio includes a wide range of sectors, targeting companies with robust growth potential. The trust has delivered consistent performance, often exceeding its be...

JARA is an investment company whose aim is to provide shareholders with stable income and capital appreciation from a globally diversified portfolio of core real assets. These include a mixture of real estate assets and infrastructure such as transport and energy, held via equity and predominately debt investments. The company sits within the AIC’s Flexible Investment sector. In this interview we...

HVPE is a FTSE 250-listed investment company offering investors exposure to a portfolio of private companies, in effect opening access to what has been an opaque and difficult to access asset class. It offers exposure to more than 1000 private companies on a global basis across a range of sectors and asset types, with 30% of its portfolio in venture and growth equity. Its aim is to provide steady...

MYI is a high-conviction portfolio that invests principally across global equity markets with the option to introduce fixed income instruments. Its aim is to deliver an above average dividend yield alongside dividend and capital growth ahead of inflation. The near 120-year-old trust is run by a trio of managers, Bruce Stout, Martin Connaghan and Samantha Fitzpatrick, with Mr Stout set to retire th...

Launched in 1891, CTY is one of London’s oldest investment companies, with a track record of 57 consecutive years of dividend increases, the longest of any company. The company aims to deliver both income and long-term capital growth by investing in a portfolio of mostly UK equities but with the ability to hold a fifth of the portfolio in overseas stocks. The company has been managed by Job Curtis...

SCF seeks to deliver income growth ahead of inflation by way of rising dividends, as well as capital growth – an objective it has achieved for 28 consecutive years. The company invests across the UK market cap and growth/value spectrum. In this interview we speak to manager Sue Noffke, who has been lead-manager since 2011, about how the company has changed tack through the recent inflation spike;...

LABS is a real estate investment trust focused on delivering strong total returns from a portfolio of properties leased to tenants operating in the UK life science sector. The company buys and develops properties specifically in the so-called Golden Triangle of Oxford, Cambridge, and King’s Cross in London - the beating heart of the UK’s world-leading life science industries. In this interview we...

HFEL is an investment company that seeks to deliver a growing dividend for its shareholders along with capital growth from a portfolio of around 60 companies across the Asia Pacific region. The company targets high and sustainable dividends from companies in the region’s more mature markets such as Australia and South Korea, and those in its faster growing economies that have a higher potential fo...

EDIN appears on the Podcast page for the second time to coincide with a change of the company’s management this month. Retiring lead portfolio manager James de Uphaugh will be succeeded by Imran Sattar, currently deputy portfolio manager, while long-standing Liontrust fund manager Emily Barnard will become deputy portfolio manager. In this interview John speaks with Imran Sattar and Liontrust Head...

ARR is an investment company that follows a value-led, high-conviction approach, typically holding between 12 and 20 investments. The company employs a deep research process to identify businesses that can deliver high returns on capital, often looking to out-of-favour areas of the market to find attractively valued shares. In this interview John Hughman speaks to Gary Channon, founder and chief i...

ORIT is an ‘impact’ investment company that aims to deliver capital growth and income to its investors by investing in a technologically and geographically diversified portfolio of renewable energy assets across the UK, Europe, and Australia. As a leading exponent of the transition to net zero, ORIT is held within the website’s Green and Green ISA portfolios. In this interview John Hughman speaks...

MMIT is an investment company that offers a high conviction portfolio of 20-30 smaller companies across emerging and frontier markets. Managed by seasoned emerging market investors Mark Mobius and Carlos Hardenberg, the company actively seeks to differentiate itself from broader emerging market benchmarks, with a heavy weighting towards high technology and healthcare businesses. In this interview...

CYN is an investment company focused on the natural resources sector, with the aim of providing investors with both capital and income growth through both equity and fixed income investments in mining and energy companies. The trust is co-managed by Ian ‘Franco’ Francis, Keith Watson and Robert Crayfourd and has delivered a NAV return of more than 600% since its launch in August 2003. In this inte...

SCP is an investment company focused on the UK's mid cap index, the FTSE 250. The company takes a high conviction approach, holding around 50 companies that it believes have the potential to grow into market leaders. In this interview John Hughman speaks with the company's lead manager Jean Roche about how good stock selection has kept the trust's performance in step with the S&P 500 over the...

When it floated in May 2023, AWEM became the first investment company to join the London market in 17 months. The company’s aim is to generate long-term capital growth by investing in securities that provide exposure to global emerging markets (EM), including companies on Western exchanges with EM exposure. In this interview we spoke to Prashant Khemka, founder of WhiteOak and manager of AWEM and...

MYI is a diversified investment company with a globally unconstrained remit, and a target of delivering long-term total returns from capital growth and income above inflation. The 116-year-old investment company has been managed by Bruce Stout since 2004, with the addition of Martin Connaghan and Samantha Fitzpatrick in 2019. In this interview with co-manager Samantha Fitzpatrick we discuss how th...

TENT invests in a variety of renewable infrastructure assets that support the transition to a lower-carbon, more efficient energy system. It targets predominantly UK assets and seeks to generate an attractive, long-term income stream with a positive impact for its shareholders, with over 90% of its income is contracted under long-term agreements. In this interview with lead manager Jonathan Hick,...