Feeling the hand of history

The investment trust industry has funded everything from the building of railways across the US to the development of South American economies in the 19th century.

This history is both the sector's strength and weakness and, in the week when Investment Week recognises the excellence within the sector, it is worth examining the relevance of the investment trust structure in today's investment markets. The weakness is that some individual trust boards continue to operate with the limited corporate governance that existed in 19th-century Britain, and some large generalist trusts have ignored the way markets have developed in the past 10 years. One thing that can been said in favour of activist investors is they have put some of those boards under p...