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Investment Week - Murdoch should give up control of News Corp

This week there was a new development in the share buyback mass shareholder value destruction exercise which has gripped American companies and has some following in the UK.

When Mandy Rice-Davies was giving evidence at the trial of Stephen Ward, charged with living off the immoral earnings of Keeler and Rice-Davies, in the Profumo Affair, she made a famous riposte. When the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Lord Astor denied an affair or having even met her, she replied, "Well, he would, wouldn't he?" (often misquoted as "Well he would say that, wouldn't he?"). By 1979 this phrase had entered the third edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

Terry Smith states that many exchange-traded funds (ETFs) do not contain a basket of the underlying securities or assets which they are attempting to track, and how there are obvious dangers in such an arrangement.

On 11th January I published my first annual letter to the holders of the Fundsmith Equity Fund. In it I levelled some criticisms at the investment fad for Exchange Traded Funds ("ETFs").

Almost 20 years on from publishing my book, Accounting for Growth, I am exposing another loophole in the accountancy rules which is allowing companies to appear to have created value when they have not.

At an Editorial Intelligence event, in association with the Financial Times, a panel debated "the Year Ahead". The event was chaired by Lionel Barber, the FT's Editor, and Terry Smith, Founder of Fundsmith, was joined on the panel by Lord Andrew Adonis, Gillian Tett and Baroness Shriti Vadera .

Terry Smith writes to the Financial Times to argue that most retail investors are their own worst enemy when it comes to trading in and out of funds, but this is nothing new.

Fundsmith, the new asset management company founded by Terry Smith, announces that direct investors can now invest in the Fundsmith Equity Fund ISA online, at www.fundsmith.co.uk. The Fundsmith website also now has the functionality for direct investors to choose between Accumulation and Income Units.

Just 18 days after the Fundsmith Equity Fund opened, the first takeover approach for a stock in the portfolio occurred with the news that KKR is in talks to buy Del Monte Foods.

Fundsmith, the new asset management company founded by Terry Smith, announces the appointment of Conrad Rey as Sales Director to Intermediaries having recently announced the appointment of Catherine Evans as Institutional Sales Director.

Fundsmith, the new asset management company founded by Terry Smith, announces the appointment of Catherine Evans as Institutional Sales Director.

Fundsmith is a new asset management company established by Terry Smith because he believes that most existing equity funds have not delivered what they promised. Fundsmith will be the main vehicle for his own investments. Instead of the multitude of expensive poor performing funds which investors currently have to choose from, the Fundsmith Equity Fund will offer investors the opportunity to invest alongside him in a high quality, concentrated portfolio of 20-30 resilient global growth companies which are held for the long term. The portfolio has no benchmark or sector constraints.

Friday 8th October saw the UK release of the sequel to Oliver Stone's 1987 movie Wall Street which starred Michael Douglas in his Oscar winning role as Gordon Gekko.

On Wednesday 15th September we celebrated the 70th anniversary of Battle of Britain Day with the unveiling of the statue of Sir Keith Park in Waterloo Place, London.

As Mrs Moneypenny pointed out in her column on 11th Sept, the campaign was launched in that column three years to the day prior to the unveiling:

As stated before, our main focus at Fundsmith is on producing superior investment returns. However, fees produce a major drag on returns over time. I founded Fundsmith to offer a high quality portfolio of resilient global growth companies which we hold for the long term and for which we charge a reasonable fee with no hidden costs.

I don't want to focus on fees to the exclusion of all else - our main focus at Fundsmith is on delivering superior performance. However, we would like to point out the very meaningful drag that fees and charges have on investment performance.

There are many who disbelieve the simple arithmetic of the impact of hedge fund style 2 and 20% fees on the division of the investment proceeds between investor and fund manager. As demonstrated, if 2 and 20 were applied to Warren Buffett's investment performance, over 90% of the eventual value of the fund would accrue not to the investor, but to the manager.

Ahead of the announcement of the Comprehensive Spending Review, Terry Smith states that “If you believe the propaganda emanating from The Guardian and the BBC you are no doubt expecting massive cuts to public spending”. “If so”, he says, “you will be disappointed.”