ROBIN Angus was for many years chief executive of Personal Assets Trust, an Edinburgh-based investment trust, which he founded with Ian Rushbrook in 1985, and guided into the FTSE 250 index.
He died last May, as he was putting the finishing touches to a compendium of his quarterly newsletters for the Trust’s shareholders. His colleagues have completed it, prefacing Robin’s compendium with the funeral eulogy delivered by his friend the Rev Allan Maclean.
By Robin’s own assessment: “Only two things could possibly tempt [me] away from trusts: a bishopric in the Scottish Episcopal Church; or a safe SNP seat.” He knew neither was likely. In Parliament, he would surely have ended up quarrelling with party managers, quickly becoming an independent.
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He would have adorned a Scottish parliamentary term in much the same way as Adam Tomkins and Andy Wightman.
I did not know him especially well, but since he was an honorary professor at Heriot-Watt, and we had some interests in common, I met him several times and found he only seemed to have strong opinions, typically expressed memorably, wittily, and with great erudition.
As an investment manager, he was, perhaps naturally, an economic liberal, believing in small government and that the collective wisdom of many people making decisions independently would almost always be better than a single decision-maker. He lauded Milton Friedman’s praise of Hong Kong, noting that its laissez-faire approach had been designed by a Scot, Sir John Cowperthwaite, who was the colony’s financial secretary between 1961-72.
Much as that made him proud of “what Scots can achieve at their best”, he had no doubt that Gordon Brown (above), especially in his raid on pension funds in the 1999 Budget, possessed none of those virtues. Robin considered that, as chancellor of the Exchequer, Brown expropriated 20% of the value of the UK equity market.
As chancellor, Brown spoke frequently of prudence. As prime minister, he would preside over the financial crisis. The change in circumstances simply seemed to heighten Robin’s disdain, leaving him wondering whether Brown had traded on his rich Scottish baritone as a means of seeming to deepen his character.
Acknowledging Brown was “good, sincere, and well-meaning”, Robin concluded he “had proven himself to be maddeningly obtuse, and a slave to complexity and obfuscation”.
Robin’s quarterly reports had a substantial reputation among professional investors. Not only were they well-written, they were filled with trenchant criticism of many of the practices of the industry. Robin believed the directors of Personal Assets Trust needed to have a substantial proportion of their wealth invested in the company.
Being shareholders was the best way to ensure directors were attentive to the interests of other shareholders. He believed there was no need for investment trusts to have complex ownership structures, or for their shares to trade at a discount to the value of the shares which they held, as is normal in the sector.
Those added substantially to the risks facing investment trust shareholders and he abhorred such unnecessary risks, especially when they came with the promise of unrealistic returns.
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On the other hand, he was relaxed about holding large amounts of cash, since he believed his primary objective was to protect his shareholders’ capital – and only after that to seek to increase it.
As a result, when equity markets fell, shares in Personal Assets Trust tended to be much more stable in value. Perhaps most audaciously, in 2008, concluding that almost any investment would lose value, Robin ensured PAT held only liquid assets. Yet he regarded even relatively modest losses as failing the Trust’s primary purpose.
His abiding interest as a fund manager was in finding value for shareholders. He considered few investments apart from the shares of large companies, government bonds, and gold. Value meant finding companies which offered secure profits, and whose shares seemed cheap relative to those profits.
For many years after the rise of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment principles, Robin continued to hold shares in oil and tobacco companies. His fidelity to his shareholders was truly Friedmanite and he disclaimed any wider responsibility to society in his work.
But, given the importance of his Christian faith, he believed wealth required good stewardship. He did not simply enjoy his personal wealth but stewarded it carefully. Putting down his pen in his office, he felt a strong call to service. Several Christian denominations sought his advice about how they might best manage their investments, and he gladly shared his expertise.
A generous host, he was always interested in his guests. Having trained as a historian, his knowledge was compendious. He told amazing stories, seeming to have an inexhaustible store of anecdotes and interesting observations. Time with Robin was very well spent.
In his youth, he gravitated towards the traditionalism, and ritual, of Anglo-Catholicism. In later life, he worshipped at St Columba’s by the Castle, founded to pursue social action in the city. He contrasted his Scottish Episcopalian heritage with the traditions of both the Scottish Presbyterian and the Anglican establishments. Somewhere in his imagination, his church had had its finest moment when it had been persecuted after the Revolution Settlement of 1689.
Robin’s Scottish patriotism resulted from him being an old Tory Jacobite. Like the best malt whiskies of his native Morayshire, his character was rich, complex, and deservedly admired.
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