About Us
Since its launch in 1909, Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust has grown and evolved to become the investment giant it is today. Over that time, it has become known for its long-term track record of supporting disruptive companies that are transforming or launching their respective industries.
And you can be reassured that we will continue to support those pioneers of progress wherever we find them.
This is our story: who we are, what the Trust’s rich history says about our investment approach, and why our investment trust structure matters to you.
Our Story
Launched in 1909, Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust has a rich history that has grown and evolved through the years to become the global investment giant it is today.
Find out more about our people, our history and the structure that makes us what we are.
Our People
Meet the key people behind the Trust.
Our History
1909
Amid soaring demand for rubber tyres for the emerging auto industry, Edinburgh lawyers Baillie & Gifford WS launch The Straits Mortgage and Trust Company with £50,000 of capital. Their big idea? To lend to the rubber industry in Malaya, squeezed by an Edwardian credit crunch. The new Trust offered ‘convertible loan stocks’, a special class of loan that could later be changed to normal shares. But the credit market recovered and few loans were made. Founders Carlyle Gifford and Colonel Augustus Baillie quickly pivoted to global investing. Four years after its foundation, the Trust became Scottish Mortgage and Trust Company Limited – a name that’s caused some confusion ever since.
© Granger/Shutterstock
1925
Scottish Mortgage amasses its first £1m in assets, largely thanks to Carlyle Gifford's nimble but shrewd and steady management. Five years later, at the end of the ‘Roaring Twenties,’ that sum had risen to £4m. The reserves the Trust managed to build up in the first of the Trust’s several boom periods help it to weather the Great Depression ushered in by the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Success allowed its managers to continue to diversify a portfolio that, during this interwar period, was half invested in fixed interest (bonds) and half in UK and global equities.
© Everett/Shutterstock
1939
Retired as manager but now an influential board member, Mr Gifford goes to Wall Street at the outbreak of the second world war to act as HM Treasury’s representative. He is tasked with selling off the assets of UK investors in the US. These had been requisitioned by the UK Government as an emergency wartime measure as it needed the cash to pay for American equipment to support the war effort. Around 40 of Scottish Mortgage’s own holdings were requisitioned and sold off during the conflict in exchange for UK Government bonds.
© Hulton Archive/Getty Images
1969
By now heavily weighted towards UK stocks, Scottish Mortgage nearly doubles in size by merging with two other investment trusts managed by Baillie Gifford (Second Scottish Mortgage and Scottish Capital), to form a £100m trust. The merger is in part a reaction to the shock of the 1965 Finance Act, introduced by Harold Wilson’s Labour Government, which levied new taxes on share transactions. The extra paperwork imposed by the Act encouraged the streamlining of Baillie Gifford-managed investment trusts to cut down on admin and costs.
2003
Chairman Sir Donald MacKay orders a radical review of the Trust’s management and governance after shares consistently trade at discount. The review, conducted with manager James Anderson, establishes much of the character and methods of today’s Scottish Mortgage: Lower costs for investors, emphasis on the long term and on companies capable of exceptional performance, regardless of location or sector. Important (and initially controversial) Scottish Mortgage holdings such as Amazon, Tencent and Tesla all stem from this turning point in the Trust’s story.
© REUTERS/Stephen Lam
2017
With a market capitalisation of just under £5bn, Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust PLC joins the FTSE 100 on 20 March, becoming only the sixth investment trust in the history of the index to join the UK’s corporate top table. In the following half-decade, the Trust’s profile as the UK’s largest investment trust grows, particularly its association with investments in technology and China.
© Matt Dunham/AP/Shutterstock
2022
Tom Slater, joint manager since 2015 becomes sole manager, with Lawrence Burns appointed as his deputy. The Trust marks 10 years of private company investing, now a stronger theme in the Trust’s story. Shareholders by now permit 30 per cent of the value of the Trust to be held in private companies, recognising that many more exciting growth companies are delaying or avoiding a stock market listing. Under Slater and Burns, the Trust continues the relentless search for the next generation of growth companies that are riding – often driving – the forces of exponential change.
Important information
Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust PLC (the “Company”) is an alternative investment fund for the purpose of Directive 2011/61/EU (the “AIFM Directive”). Baillie Gifford & Co Limited is the alternative investment fund manager (“AIFM”) of the Company and has been authorised for marketing to Professional Investors in this jurisdiction.
This website is made available by Baillie Gifford Investment Management (Europe) Limited (“BGE”), which has been engaged by the AIFM to carry out promotional activities relating to the Company. BGE is authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland as an AIFM under the AIFM Regulations and as a UCITS management company under the UCITS Regulation. BGE also has regulatory permissions to perform promotional, advisory and Individual Portfolio Management activities. BGE has passported its authorisations under the mechanisms set out in the AIFM Directive.
This website is informative only and the information provided should not be considered as investment or other advice or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a particular investment. Read our Legal and regulatory information for further details.
