The fund manager in question, Sanford DeLand, has credibility via the record of its £1.4bn CFP SDL UK Buffettology Fund (GB00BF0LDZ31). The open-ended fund claims a total return of 237 per cent since its launch in 2011 against a 62 per cent return from its benchmark and 54 per cent from the FTSE All-Share index. Now it aims to raise at least £100m to launch the Buffettology Smaller Companies Investment Trust, which will be run on much the same lines as the established fund. However, by dint of the closed-end nature of investment trusts, it may be a better vehicle for pursuing the long-term aims implicit in Buffett-style investing, especially as it will run a comparatively small – and therefore potentially volatile – portfolio. The Buffettology unit trust gets by on 31 holdings and the manager envisages 30 to 50 holdings for the investment trust.
Perhaps what’s so surprising about the cult of Warren Buffett is that it took so long to become established. Even in the mid-1980s – 30 years after he had set up as a fund manager – the Buffett name was little known outside the US. It took John Train’s The Money Masters, published 1980, to eventually trigger widespread recognition. And not until Robert Hagstrom’s The Warren Buffett Way (1994) was there a forensic attempt to explain Mr Buffett’s methods. After that, the Buffett hagiography got into full swing, not that Mr Hagstrom’s explanation has been bettered.