Monks’ Spencer Adair to retire after 26 years at Baillie Gifford

Long-serving Baillie Gifford manager steps back from Monks management.

After nearly three decades at Baillie Gifford, Spencer Adair, co-manager of the Monks Investment Trust (MNKS ), will retire at the end of March 2026.

The £2.5bn global growth portfolio will continue to be run by Baillie Gifford’s Global Alpha team. Current managers Malcolm MacColl and Helen Xiong will be joined by new addition Michael Taylor from 1 April next year.

MacColl has co-managed Monks alongside Adair since March 2015, with Xiong joining the team in July last year. Both are partners at the firm.

Adair was also co-manager on a number of open-ended funds, including the Baillie Gifford Worldwide Global Alpha and Worldwide Responsible Global Alpha Paris-Aligned funds. 

Taylor, a more recently appointed partner, began his investment career with Baillie Gifford in 2009 before spending seven years at Marathon Asset Management from 2014. He returned to the firm in 2022 and has worked closely with the Global Alpha team as a ‘decision maker’ since April this year.

In a statement, the board said: ‘Spencer will remain in his current role until his retirement, continuing to work closely with Malcolm, Helen and Michael to ensure a smooth transition and handover of responsibilities.’

The trust confirmed there will be no change to its investment objective or strategy. Like stablemate Scottish Mortgage (SMT ), Monks invests in global growth companies, but with a broader spread of holdings and lower exposure to unquoted stocks.

Its portfolio is divided into three buckets: stalwarts, rapid growth and cyclical growth. As of August, top holdings were in Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Nvidia.

Adair took over as lead manager from Charles Plowden in 2021, with Monks returning 6.3% during his tenure.

The trust endured a bruising six-months between November 2021 and May 2022, its share price sinking nearly 35%, but has since made a full recovery. According to broker Deutsche Numis, shares are up 15.7% year-to-date including dividends reinvested and 42.6% over three.

From January 2022, when the trust launched its buyback programme, to results this April, Monks has repurchased 65.5m shares at a cost of £727m. As of yesterday, shares traded at a 5.5% discount to net asset value.