Nick Train , manager of the
Finsbury Growth & Income Trust , owes the development of his strategy to a stroke of luck after he came across the work of John Train ( no relation ), a US adviser who wrote several books on investing . “ In the late 1980s , as a still-callow investment professional , I read one of them : The Midas Touch ,” he says . “ I did so more out of curiosity about our shared surname than any enthusiasm for the subject matter .” It transpired the book was about Warren Buffett – who back then wasn ’ t as lionised as he has become in subsequent decades . “ It also transpired , or so it seemed to me , that everything I ’ d believed were prerequisites for successful investing were , in fact , precisely wrong ,” Train adds . “ Back then and perhaps still to an extent today , it was expected successful professional investors would prioritise novelty over heritage in companies ; that speculative situations would outpace the
pedestrian ; that traders are winners , while patient investors are little better than stick-in-the-muds . “ Thank goodness I read Train ’ s book and digested the principles that informed Buffett ’ s Midas touch . Thirty years later , I ’ m still investing according to my understanding of those principles . What success has come my way has come from patiently investing in apparently boring but highly predictable companies .”
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