About us
Temple Bar is an established investment company with a disciplined, value-oriented investment approach.
Here we take a look at the trust’s credentials.
Investment objective
Temple Bar’s investment objective is to provide investors with a growing income combined with growth in capital. It aims to meet this objective by investing primarily in UK equities, across different sectors, maintaining a balance of larger and smaller/medium-sized companies. The Trust has a bias towards FTSE 350 companies.
The Trust is managed by Nick Purves and Ian lance of Redwheel, who have more than fifty years of investment experience between them and have been working as a partnership for over thirteen years.
The strategy employed by Temple Bar is known as value investing. This is the process of buying a company’s stock for less than its true worth (sometimes known as its intrinsic value).
By buying at a discount, this strategy builds in a ‘margin of safety’ and whilst in the short term an undervalued company’s share price might fall further, in the long run the built-in value should ultimately be recognised by other investors, prompting the share price to rise to reflect the stock’s intrinsic value. There is much empirical evidence to show that value strategies have delivered excess returns over the longer term.
Of course, some companies are cheap for a good reason, but we believe investments in good quality, yet undervalued companies with strong cash flows and robust balance sheets offer the best potential for attractive long-term investment returns.
It’s important to remember that there is no guarantee that a company’s valuation will move to reflect the value that the portfolio managers see. In addition, future and dividend growth is not guaranteed. As a result, the value of your shares in Temple Bar and the income from them can fall as well as rise and you may lose money. Further key risks we believe are faced by Temple Bar investors can be read here.
No investment strategy or risk management technique can guarantee returns or eliminate risks in any market environment.
Nick Purves
Ian Lance
Key facts
The Trust is one of the last remaining UK investment trusts to pursue a disciplined value approach to investing.
Temple Bar is an independent company with a board of directors whose responsibility is to seek the best investment return for its shareholders.
Portfolio managers Nick Purves and Ian Lance have more than 50 years of investment experience between them.
Value strategies have struggled in the growth-dominated markets of the last decade, but recent market behaviour suggests this style of investing may be resuming its former dominance.
Our history
Whilst not likely to influence your investment decision, you may be interested to know about the trust’s background.
The Temple Bar Investment Trust has a proud history and pedigree, having invested on behalf of others since 1926. Its original name was Cable, Telephone and General Trust Company Ltd. It was established to invest primarily in the bonds of North and South American telephone companies, but has been investing in UK equities for well over half a century.
Since it was established, it has confronted the challenges of the Great Depression of the 1930s, World War II, the inflationary 1970s and subsequent periods of equity market strength and weakness. While short term losses could not be avoided on these occasions, the Investment Trust has recovered strongly to post solid gains for long term investors. Please remember however that past performance should not be taken as a guide to the future, the value of investments can fall as well as rise and losses may be made.
The Trust’s current name was adopted in 1977 following a reverse takeover. The Temple Bar name has an interesting heritage:
- It was once one of the long line of structures marking the boundary between Westminster and the City of London
- It originally stood at the junction of Fleet Street and The Strand
- Temple Bar was associated with a celebration following the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and the funeral of Lord Nelson in 1806
- The heads of executed traitors used to be displayed above the central arch
- Temple Bar was moved to Theobald’s Park near Waltham Cross in 1878, but returned in 2004 to London’s Paternoster Square
Board of Directors
All the directors are independent and members of the audit and nomination committees.
Richard Wyatt
Richard Wyatt was appointed a Director in 2017 and became Chairman in May 2023. He is a former Group Managing Director at Schroders and a Partner at Lazard. He was chairman of the media agency Engine Group and served on the Regulatory Decisions Committee of the FSA. He is currently a global partner of Rothschild & Co, chairman of Loudwater Partners Limited and a director of a number of other companies.
Lesley Sherratt
Lesley Sherratt was appointed a Director in 2015. She has twenty-five years’ experience as an investment manager, specialising in the analysis of financial services companies but also running the global equity team at Flemings. She was formerly Investment Director of the Save & Prosper and Fleming Flagship ranges of funds, and CEO and CIO of Ark Asset Management Ltd, a hedge fund she founded. She is currently a trustee of the Henry Moore Foundation, a Visiting Lecturer at King’s College, London and writes on ethics in finance.
Shefaly Yogendra
Shefaly Yogendra, PhD was appointed a Director in 2019. She was most recently the COO of Ditto AI, a symbolic AI startup. She built her career in corporate venturing in the technology industry, followed by strategy advisory work on emerging technologies with investors, regulators and leaders of operating companies. She focuses on digital leadership and governance, organisational growth, risk, and decision making. She is an independent governor of London Metropolitan University, and a non-executive director of Harmony Energy Income Trust PLC and JP Morgan US Smaller Companies Investment Trust PLC. She was listed among the “100 Women To Watch” in the 2016 edition of the Female FTSE Board Report.
Charles Cade
Charles Cade was appointed a Director in 2022. He has over 25 years’ experience in the investment Companies sector, and was ranked among the leading analysts throughout his career at Numis Securities, Winterflood Securities, HSBC and Merrill Lynch. He joined the City following an MBA, having previously worked for a consultancy firm and as an economist in the UK government. He currently sits on the Investment Committee of the Rank Foundation charity, and is an independent member of the Investment Research Monitoring Group for interactive investor, the retail platform.
Carolyn Sims
Carolyn Sims was appointed a Director in January 2023. She is the CFO and COO of British International Investment (BII), the UK’s Development Finance Institution. Before joining BII in 2020, Carolyn was CFO of the Wealth Management Division of Schroders plc and a member of its Group Management Committee. Prior to that, Carolyn was the CFO of Cazenove Capital Management Limited until its sale to Schroders in 2013. Carolyn started her career with Touche Ross & Co. where she qualified as a Chartered Accountant. She then joined Lazard where her roles included COO for Global Capital Markets and UK Finance Director.