Smithson’s Barnard to step down from fund
Departure adds to an eventful year for the fund.
15th September 2026 09:30
by Dave Baxter from interactive investor
Smithson Equity Fund S GBP Acc (BLBNK48) manager Simon Barnard (pictured above) will step down at the end of the month, with one of Fundsmith’s analysts taking the reins.
Barnard, who has worked on the portfolio since the then Smithson investment trust launched back in 2018, will step back on 1 October, with analyst Jonathan Imlah taking over.
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The departure, which Fundsmith described as “an amicable parting” in a letter to investors, comes not long after Smithson ceased to exist as a trust and moved some of its assets into an open-ended fund, following pressure from the US activist Saba Capital.
The fund has sought to apply the Fundsmith philosophy to global small and mid-cap shares, with great success in its early days but some notable performance struggles more recently.
That was illustrated in the Smithson trust’s 2025 interim report, which pointed to a net asset value (NAV) loss of 1.8% versus a positive 10.2% return for the MSCI World SMID index in that year.
“The company’s investment performance since inception in 2018 can broadly be split into two distinct periods: strong performance from IPO until 2021, and then underperformance since early 2022,” the board said at the time.
The successor
Writing to investors about the management change, Fundsmith boss Terry Smith said: “Jonathan has been a member of the research team for the fund (and its predecessor Smithson investment trust) since inception, working closely alongside Simon.
“Jonathan knows the portfolio, the companies within it, and the investment philosophy that underpins it, intimately. Jonathan has a substantial personal investment in the fund, aligning his interests directly with those of our fellow investors.”
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The fund has just 33 holdings, with its top 10 positions including Japanese e-commerce name Monotaro, MSCI Inc (NYSE:MSCI), Moncler SpA (MTA:MONC), Spirax Group (LSE:SPX) and commercial oven business Rational AG (XETRA:RAA).
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