Master Investor is over for another year, and I am very glad I had the chance to attend the UK’s biggest annual retail investment jamboree – by Gavin Lumsden

As a first-timer to the show in London’s Business Design Centre, I was impressed to see a big, buzzy crowd of private investors (with over 4,000 tickets sold) gathered in Islington, attracting a strong investment company presence.

Allianz Global Investors, Baillie Gifford, Columbia Threadneedle Investments, Invesco, JPMorgan Asset Management, Janus Henderson Investors, Odyssean Capital and Polar Capital all had stands around QuotedData’s Fund Village promoting their trusts to the throng of wealth seekers.

There were also Literacy Capital (BOOK), Caledonia (CLDN), HarbourVest Global Private Equity (HVPE), ICG Enterprise Trust (ICGT), Oakley Capital Investments (OCI) and RIT Capital Partners (RCP) seeking to draw in the punters.

As a new recruit to the firm, it was inspiring to see the QuotedData team including Ed Marten, James Carthew, Richard Williams, David Batchelor, Trevor Leek, Veronica Cappelli, Aiman Shaikh and Eiman Ali in the centre of it all with our Fund Village!

I was chiefly there to compere events in the auditorium, a large conference room in the floor above the main hall.

I’m very grateful to Carlos Hardenberg of Mobius Investment Trust (MMIT) and Gaurav Narain of India Capital Growth (IGC) for sharing their thoughts on the legacy of Mark Mobius at the start of our afternoon discussion on emerging markets. It was a good personal way into an asset class that I was surprised to see had rallied around 50% in sterling terms in the past year.

As a fan of closed-end funds, I acknowledge it’s important to have an open mind. Other structures are available! At the event open-ended funds had their champion in the enthusiastic shape of Blue Whale Growth’s Stephen Yiu.

The fund manager vied with Scottish Mortgage Trust’s (SMT) Hamish Maxwell for the biggest audience in the auditorium, which is quite an achievement given SMT’s size and FTSE 100 status.

Introducing an array of investment company managers was a reminder of the strength and breadth of the London-listed funds sector. The speakers I saw included Muzo Kayacan of BlackRock American Income Trust (BRAI) explaining the quantitative strategy its team now use, Rhys Davies of Invesco Bond Income Plus (BIPS) extolling the risk-return virtues of high yield corporate debt and Gabriel Sacks of Aberdeen Asia Focus (AAS) on his high-conviction approach to the region’s smaller companies.

Meeting Indriatti van Hien, lead manager of Henderson Smaller Companies (HSL), for the first time on stage was a big plus as I was due to interview her in the following week and hear more about why UK small caps are overdue a rebound that perhaps a resolution to the Middle East conflict could trigger.

I enjoyed a JP Morgan session with Claverhouse (JCH) manager Anthony Lynch, Emily Whiting, investment specialist on JPMorgan Emerging Markets Dividend Income (JEMI) and Amit Parmar, investment specialist on JPMorgan Global Growth and Income (JGGI), if only because head of investment trusts Simon Elliott led their discussion giving me a 25-minute break!

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to hear all of Wilfred Frost’s interview with Jim Mellon in the main hall but as I hurried by, I was excited to hear the star investor and backer of the conference say his pension was all in investment companies. He also revealed that Odyssean (OIT) and Law Debenture (LWDB) were also in his latest top 10 tips. Now there’s a good example! Like many others, I have next year’s Master Investor date in my diary having learned what an informative experience it is.

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