The Monks Investment Trust PLC (MNKS)
Legal Entity Identifier: 213800MRI1JTUKG5AF64
Results for the six months to 31 October 2025
The following is the unaudited Interim Financial Report for the six months to 31 October 2025 which was approved by the Board on 3 December 2025.
Chairman’s statement
Performance
The start of the current financial year coincided with uncertainty about the potential impact of US tariffs on the global economy and ended with the US market near its all-time high.
Against this backdrop, I am pleased to report that, during the six months to 31 October 2025, the Company produced a net asset value (NAV*) total return of +29.2% compared to +24.2% for the comparative index (FTSE World in sterling). The share price total return was +35.2%, as the share price discount to NAV narrowed.
Whilst six months represents too short a time frame on which to judge performance, this represents continued progress in the NAV and share price which have returned +21.5% and +29.1% over the past year, compared to the index return of +21.0%.
Commentary on the contributors to performance is contained in the Interim Management Report.
Capital allocation/Share buybacks
The Board believes that shareholders should expect the Company to attempt to restrict any discount to net asset value, with borrowings calculated at fair value, to mid-single digits, in normal market conditions. The Company stepped up its buyback activity over the summer and bought back approximately 19 million shares over the six months to 31 October 2025, at a cost of £268 million. The discount* narrowed from 10.1% to 5.9% over the six-month period.
Gearing
An advantage of the investment trust structure is that the Company can deploy borrowing to enhance returns in the long term. The Company has a mixture of long term, structural debt and shorter term, more flexible debt. At the period end, net gearing was 7.0% and the weighted average interest rate across all borrowings was 3.4%.
The Board
The Board is cognisant of the need to ensure regular refreshment of its composition, whilst also maintaining continuity and corporate memory. Karl Sternberg retired from the Board at the conclusion of the Annual General Meeting, and I succeeded him as Chairman. Compared to Karl and my earlier predecessors, I feel ‘like a dwarf perched on the shoulders of a giant’ (to quote William of Conches, 1123). I, and all Monks shareholders, owe Karl a great deal of gratitude for steering Monks for many years; I appreciate I have big shoes to fill.
As previously announced, Richard Curling joined the Board in October, adding investment trust experience and wide investment knowledge to the Board. I am confident that his skills and contribution will complement our board.
We have recruited four new directors over the past two years as part of our succession planning. We are currently in a transition period and expect the size of the Board to normalise in due course.
Belinda Richards will pass on her responsibilities as senior independent director to Stacey Parrinder-Johnson from 1 January 2026.
Belinda Richards and Sir Nigel Shadbolt will retire at the next AGM.
The Managers
In September, we announced that Spencer Adair, one of the managers of Monks, will retire on 31 March 2026. The portfolio will continue to be managed by the Global Alpha team at Baillie Gifford. This will comprise current managers Malcolm MacColl and Helen Xiong, who will be joined as co-managers by Michael Taylor from 1 April 2026.
Mr MacColl is a Managing Partner of Baillie Gifford and has managed Monks alongside Spencer since the Global Alpha team took over its management in March 2015. Ms Xiong, a partner of Baillie Gifford, has been a member of the Global Alpha team since 2020. Mr Taylor, a recently appointed partner of Baillie Gifford, began his investment career with Baillie Gifford in 2009. Following seven years at Marathon Asset Management, he returned in 2022 and has worked closely with the team since joining formally as a decision maker in April this year.
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. Spencer has spent 26 years at Baillie Gifford, joined the Global Alpha team at its establishment in 2005 and started work on Monks in 2015. He has earned the right to hang up his spurs and deserves thanks from our long standing shareholders.
The quote I mentioned earlier comes from William of Conches’ notes on Priscian’s Institutiones grammaticae (written around 500 AD). In it, he says ‘the younger people see more clearly.’ What Priscian and William meant is that younger generations are often more perceptive because they build on the knowledge and experience of those who came before them.
The relevant point for our shareholders is that transitions have happened for centuries in different walks of life; and even in fund management including Monks (perhaps over a shorter timespan). Helen, Michael and Malcolm (who will be delighted to be called ‘young’) have worked together with Spencer for a number of years (in the case of Malcolm decades). We believe that the process and culture of the Global Alpha team and Baillie Gifford generally, gives assurance to our shareholders that the investment approach and philosophy of Monks is unchanged during this transition.
Manager Review
The Board reassesses the Manager every year, in line with AIC guidelines. This year, the Board supplemented the annual AIC checklist with consideration of the effect of personnel change, any process changes that have occurred during the period, and changing market dynamics. This was the ‘deep dive’ that Karl mentioned in the last Annual Report. The objective is to ensure that we are ready for a future which, given the political fragmentation of the world, the rate of technological change plus the challenges within and around the fund management industry is going to be increasingly difficult to predict.
Your board undertook a dedicated session in December reviewing our managers’ investment philosophy, process, resources, sourcing of ideas and buy / sell criteria. We also discussed lessons learned from the last few years and how that has augmented the investment process.
I will have more to report in the Annual Report, as there are areas the board is scheduled to dive into in future board meetings, but it is fair to report that we were pleased with the response of our managers and their thoughtful engagement and eagerness to refine their process for the benefit of our shareholders.
Outlook
Another version of Conches / Priscinaus’ quote is often associated with Isaac Newton who was one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution of the 16th-17th centuries. This laid the foundation for the subsequent Technological Revolution of the 18th-19th centuries.
As we find ourselves at the beginning of the AI revolution, it is worth remembering that ideas developed centuries ago – like Calculus (by Newton and Leibniz) and Newton’s optimisation methods – are the foundation of the algorithms that power modern machine learning. Just as Newton could not have imagined inventions like the steam train or today’s Nvidia GPUs, we cannot predict exactly what is coming next – but it is clear that many new opportunities will emerge.
Monks has a well-diversified portfolio of growth stocks. The Board believes that the Company’s diversified approach offers investors exposure to a wide range of growth opportunities that are likely to drive returns in the years ahead.
Randeep Grewal
Chairman
3 December 2025
* NAV with debt at fair value. For a definition of terms used see Glossary of terms and Alternative Performance Measures towards the end of this announcement.
Total return information is sourced from Baillie Gifford/LSEG and relevant underlying index providers. See disclaimer on towards the end of this announcement.