I like Witan as an investment trust and have a small holding in it via Singapore where I hold a UK investment trust portfolio, as quality unit trusts are harder to come by in Singapore. The holding in Witan is partly driven by recommendations on Big Mango BTW when I was looking at investment trusts and AYG and rgs mentioned it. I also audited it about 20+ years back while a UK accountant so have known it for years

A couple of points to be taken in context:

1) Picking just one investment trust to compare to doesn't really give an indication of where it fits. I would consider Witan to be one of the better global investment trusts. So if Lindsell Train compares to it, then it compares to one of the better global funds in the investment sector. Witan comes 16th out of 63 global investment trusts which have a performance listed on trustnet for 5 years. That's pretty good in my book

2) When looking at investment trusts if someone wants to appraise the performance of the fund manager not simply the share price, then they have to look at the increase or decrease in net asset value (NAV).

Unlike a unit trust, the share price of an investment trust doesn't just reflect the value of underlying investments (NAV) but also reflects supply and demand for the shares of the investment trust themselves. This supply and demand reflects how popular a share/ investment trust is.

Simply put the change in NAV reflects the value created by the fund manager. The share price reflects the value created by the fund manager plus a distortion for supply and demand of the (popularity) of the fund itself

Even though Witan's share price increased 146% over 5 years, similar to Lindsell Train Global Equity's 147%, Witan's NAV "only" increased 117%.

www.trustnet.com/Factsheets/Factsheet.aspx?fundCode=ITWTAN&univ=T

While this is still good relative to the sector what it means is that the value created by Witan's fund manager over 5 years is some 30% less than Lindsell Train.

Further the 30% that Witan gained because of it becoming more in demand is very unlikely to be repeated in the next 5 years as it now trades just under NAV. 5 years ago it traded significantly under NAV. Moreover for the share price to close towards NAV, that means that at some point in the past when the fund was less popular its share price would have underperformed NAV. If it swings back again this could be repeated. i.e who's to say next time the fund manager increases 117% over 5 years, what happens if the discount to NAV widens and loses 30% of its return.

So for a fund manager like Lindsell Train to create 30% more value for its fund holders over 5 years than one of the better investment trusts is again pretty decent in my book.

As I say though, I like Witan. It's one of the largest invest trusts around though so not as nimble as others. It has a wide range of diversified holdings which are a decent global core to build around

If buying thru the UK I would prefer Lindsell Train Global Equity to Witan. However, when I bought thru Singapore where I couldn't buy Lindsell Train Global, I went for Witan as one of the options. Both are good holdings in my view.

To me it's a fund run by an excellent stock picker who admittedly was over-invested in retail banks just before the financial crisis.  Performance was dire, but I stuck with it.  I think he (Max Ward) has leaned from that, and before and since the crisis he's been very astute.

Anyway, the half yearly financial report is just out.  Haven't had time to digest it fully, but it's worth a read if you like that sort of thing.

itdocuments.blob.core.windows.net/live/1043/independent_investment_trust_interim_financial_report_may_2017.pdf