WHAT IS THE PEOPLE’S TRUST?
Most people think that investment isn’t for them. We’re trying to change that.
Our investment focus is very long-term. We believe that this is a better way to help people succeed in providing for future financial needs than a constant focus on short-term returns.
We’ll be a company that's 100% owned by our customers so we have no external commercial interests to satisfy.
You can be confident The People’s Trust will be run entirely for your benefit because we’ve designed our structure that way. This gives credibility to our purpose: better returns for you and a better impact on society by investing for sustainable wealth creation.
We’ll aim to fulfil our purpose through true long-term investment, which means that we’ll have the time and patience to work with our investment managers and the companies they select. Our mission will be to help them deliver sustainable long-term returns for you and a better future for employees, the environment and the economy.
Who we are
The People’s Trust will be a new and different kind of investment fund. We’ll be owned 100% by our customers. And we’ll have a structure that ensures we’ll always be independent of any external commercial interests.
A FUND YOU CAN TRUST
The People’s Trust will be owned 100% by you, our customers, and we'll put your interests first every time.
From as little as £25 a month (the equivalent of about £6 a week), you’ll be able to invest by buying People’s Trust shares. This means you, along with every other customer, will be a shareholder – an owner with a right to share our returns and a voice in how we're run.
We won’t pay employee bonuses, which ensures that there won’t be any unintended incentives that could damage your interests.
Instead, we’ll pay any employee part of their salary in People’s Trust shares, which they’ll have to hold for at least seven years. This ensures that their interests will always be the same as yours.
Total costs will be crystal clear, so you’ll always know what you’re paying for the returns you get.
And all the economies of scale we can capture as we grow will be put back into The People's Trust to bring down costs, because we serve no one’s interests but yours.
RETURN TO TOPBETTER RETURNS FOR YOU
Over the long term, we believe that our approach can deliver better returns to you.
We will free up our investment managers to think long-term – and they will encourage the companies they invest in to do the same.
The People’s Trust’s selected investment managers will invest in the companies that they believe are best able to achieve sustainable, long-term growth.
Our aim is to get you the best possible returns over seven-year periods. Investment can take time to pay off and that’s how long we think it could take for our investment approach to come through.
Our strategy is to achieve this by backing the companies in which we invest for the long term and working with them to help them do even better.
Nobody can be sure what our investment returns will be, but we believe that over a typical seven-year period, our strategy should be capable of turning £100 into £160 – that’s a total return of 7% a year compound, after costs, assuming that inflation runs at 2% p.a. over the period.
In terms of your spending power, this is the equivalent of 5% p.a., giving your £100 a value of around £140 after seven years, after inflation.
We are projecting that our ongoing costs will be around 1.1% a year in the early days, before falling eventually as The People’s Trust gets bigger and the power of the economies of scale work in your favour.
Actual returns will be affected by general inflation and economic and market conditions. Some seven-year periods will be better and some worse than the target and there is a risk that you could lose money, even over a seven-year period.
Every year, but in particular at the end of the seventh year and every year thereafter, the Chief Executive will write to shareholders to explain how performance has measured against our targets, how that performance was achieved and any lessons learned.
The Chief Executive will be accountable for performance and shareholders will be invited to vote on the retention or replacement of the Chief Executive, based on the performance report and explanation at the Annual General Meeting.
Your money is at risk and the value of shares and any income from them may fall as well as rise. But we believe that investors who invest with The People’s Trust for the long haul and who can “keep calm and carry on” when markets are turbulent are giving themselves the best chance of being highly satisfied with the outcomes of our approach.
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BETTER RETURNS FOR society
We’ll work with the companies we invest in to encourage them to focus on long-term, sustainable wealth creation. In this way, we hope that we can help them work to change society for the better.
We’ll seek to invest in companies that have business strategies, market strength and the people to deliver sustainable, long-term growth. We will encourage companies to innovate, invest in their people, pay their taxes, and protect the environment. With The People’s Trust backing them long-term, we will encourage those companies to deliver better returns for you, better growth for the economy and better jobs for their people.
The People’s Trust will also improve lives directly and immediately, by using a small proportion of the fund to lend to charities and community interest companies that have a direct social impact. This is not charity; we expect a modest return on these loans – but you’ll know this money is being used with the aim of doing good in society.
When you invest in The People’s Trust, we buy stakes in companies around the world on your behalf. Together, we have more power than you may realise.
We seek to have a positive impact on how the companies we invest in use your money. We can hold their executives to account, and even seek to require them to change the way they behave if we need to. By doing that, we aim to make investing work for you. To free fund managers and companies from the shackles of short-termism. And to make our society more prosperous, more sustainable and more equal.
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