Investment trust Smithson (LSE: SSON) has endured a difficult few weeks. By last Friday’s close, the FTSE 250 constituent had seen its share price fall a little over 14% since the start of 2022. As a holder, I’ve become pretty philosophical about it all. Let me explain why.
Great start
Don’t mistake me for some kind of stock market masochist. No one actually enjoys seeing the value of the biggest holding in their Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) fall by a double-digit percentage. In fact, Smithson’s decline has the potential to hurt more than most. given that investors like me have been spoiled by performance for the majority of its existence.
The small- and mid-cap-focused fund was launched back in October 2018. No doubt helped by its link to star money manager Terry Smith (Smithson comes from the Fundsmith stable and adopts the same strategy), investors were queueing up to throw their money in the ring. And up until recently, this confidence has been richly rewarded.
From inception to the end of 2021, the trust delivered an annualised gain of 24.5%. That compares very favourably to the 13% achieved by its benchmark — the MSCI World SMID Index. It also more than justified the 0.9% annual management charge, in my opinion.
What’s gone wrong?
The recent wobble may be due to a number of things. First, there’s the issue of valuation. As a quality-focused fund, Smithson doesn’t look for cheap stocks.
Like its big brother, Fundsmith Equity, it targets companies with valuable brands and huge market shares that generate consistently high returns on the money they put to work. This includes property website Rightmove, mixer-drinks supplier Fevertree Drinks and Domino’s Pizza Group. Unfortunately, such businesses are rarely without friends and priced accordingly. That’s fine when markets are behaving themselves. Less so when investors are fretting over earlier-than-expected interest rate rises.
The fact that almost half of Smithson’s portfolio comes from the IT sector probably doesn’t help either. By sharp contrast to last year, companies in this space have now fallen out of favour. Thankfully, Smithson makes a point of avoiding the unprofitable fluff whose share prices are now falling faster than Boris Johnson’s approval ratings. Nevertheless, investors seem to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
The aforementioned performance of its shares may have also seen a few profit-takers emerge from the shadows. After all, Smithson’s market-cap had grown to £3.5bn by the end of December. That’s already pretty large for a trust that is designed to invest in companies lower down the food chain. In fact, the median size of business in the portfolio is actually £10bn! Moreover, manager Simon Barnard’s investment strategy is still to be comprehensively tested and some people may be getting out while the going’s good.
Loading up for the recovery
While I wouldn’t mind being proven wrong, I certainly don’t expect Smithson’s annualised return to remain at the percentage it stood at in December. As a fuss-free way of accessing high-quality businesses from around the developed world however, it still strikes me as a perfect core holding.
I believe that good businesses tend to outlive bad ones. I also regard myself as a long-term growth investor. As such, it makes sense for me not to panic about Smithson’s sticky patch just yet.
