Loose Ends

I hate to write “unique” but Herald Investment Trust qualifies.

It is not unique to be a woman running a fund. A relation of mine managed Smith and Williamson’s North America Trust with success for some seventeen years. Nichola Horlick’s Bramdean Asset Management was not such a good advertisement for feminine intuition. It gave money to the Miami Magician, the Manhattan Midas, namely Bernie Madoff. A close friend refused to let her hedge fund give Madoff the money.

But we slightly veer away from the wind and must haul in the sheets and get back on course. Katie Potts founded Herald Investment Trust in 1994 and has run it ever since. I think, at least in the UK, it is unique for a fund to have the same woman manager for twenty-six years and she’s showing no sign of stopping. You can meet her in a short video later.

The friend who told me about Herald was looking Piglet Pink when he read yesterday’s post. It should be a Farrow & Ball colour along with Eeyore Grey. He also told me why his father invested in Herald at inception. He overheard a shop assistant at Peter Jones talking to a customer and agreeing that the future would be digital. His broker’s post-prandial recommendations he usually ignored but when Herald came along he remembered his Peter Jones moment.

Also yesterday I coyly wrote that Lord Wrottesley and I had two things in common: born at Hatch Street and with Stratford ancestry. In fact we have a lot more common ground: Eton, Sandhurst, the Household Division and a love of Ireland. There was a film a few years ago (1993) about a Jamaican bobsleigh team competing at the Olympics, Cool Runnings. Lord Wrotttesley is a much cooler chilled Dry Martini. The Irish Times tells some of the story compellingly (a new favourite word). As you now know, we don’t have that much in common.