Meet the manager: Nick Train
Hear from Nick Train, Portfolio Manager of Finsbury Growth & Income Trust.
If you weren’t a fund manager, what job would you do?
- I’d be a professional historian. Though, in a way, my current job is being a practical historian.
What was the proudest moment of your career?
- Finsbury Growth & Income Trust’s share price going to a premium to its NAV, then staying there for a period. There is no greater compliment for a fund manager.
What was the most difficult moment of your career and why?
- Not “getting” the 1998-2000 tech bubble. It seemed everything I’d learned up to then was wrong or irrelevant. And, in fact, accelerating technology change did indeed mean some of what I’d previously learned was wrong or had become irrelevant.
What advice would you give to your 20-year-old self?
- Always be optimistic about business and markets. It took me until I was 40 to grasp the importance of that.
Away from the workplace, how do you spend your time? Is there a particular hobby you enjoy, or something that is a staple of your weekends?
- I practice and teach yoga. It is never too late to try it, but don’t leave it too late.
Tell us about the last book you read or the last podcast you listened to?
- Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It’s hard to think of a more instructive topic.
Where was the last place you went on holiday and why?
- North Cornwall – because I know a pub which serves Proper Job direct from the cask.
In your personal life, what would you like to achieve in the next 12 months?
- I hope to climb a few more Corbetts (mountains in Scotland between 2,500 and 3,000 feet high, with at least 500 feet of descent on all sides). At the current rate I’ll not finish them until I’m 100.
‘I practice and teach yoga. It is never too late to try it, but don’t leave it too late.’
