How a trust can help you relax too

SOME of the best funds for ‘lazy’ investors are global investment trusts.

Listed on the London Stock Exchange, these vehicles have a number of attractive features.

First, they tend to be broadly invested across the world’s major stock markets, providing shareholders with comforting geographic diversification.

They also have many company holdings, meaning their overall investment performance is not compromised if a stake in an individual business goes s o u r. Although annual charges may not be as low as on some passive funds, most global investment trusts have competitive charges.

For example, Monks and Scottish Mortgage – both managed by Baillie Gifford – have respective total annual charges of 0.43 per cent and 0.34 per cent.

Other global trusts with annual charges of 0.6 per cent or below include Bankers (0.5 per cent), F&C (0.52 per cent), and Scottish (0.52 per cent).

Two other attractive features of global investment trusts are their longevity – some trusts such as F&C go back more than 150 years – and their ability to deliver a steady growth in dividend payments.

Trusts such as Bankers (managed by Janus Henderson), Alliance and F& C have annual dividend growth records going back at least 50 years.

Further details about these lazy investor trusts can be found at website theaic.co.uk.