Hansa Investment Company

Hansa Investment Company (Hansa) offers investors a rare opportunity to invest in a diversified, multi-asset portfolio with the goal of generating long-term capital growth. The CIO of Hansa Capital Partners, Alec Letchfield, has constructed a Portfolio with a preference for specialist and unique active managers, which are often unavailable to most investors, alongside lower cost, broad market exposure. These are blended with a direct equities sleeve, using a bespoke in-house approach, private asset funds and a mixture of more all-weather, diversifying funds.

The goal of this approach is to deliver strong returns over the long-term while offering better downside protection (see Performance). The company has recently undergone some corporate activity having combined with Ocean Wilsons Holdings. As part of this transaction, the manager has reduced their Charges, dropping the performance fee that was previously levied on Ocean Wilsons, and the company has introduced a share buyback policy for the first time. As a result of these changes, Hansa is unequivocally a more straightforward offering for investors.

One aspect that continues, despite the simplified offering that Hansa now represents, is the wide Discount. At c. 47%, Hansa is on one of the widest discounts in the entire investment trust sector. The effective level is even higher as Hansa currently has considerable cash on the balance sheet following the combination (see Gearing). While it is hoped that a transparent share buyback policy, which will be highly accretive to NAV at the current discount level, will help narrow the discount, the manager is primarily focussed on promoting the newly simplified proposition to a wider audience of investors and continuing to produce strong returns.