The Merchants Trust - Finding high-quality, well priced opportunities

The Merchants Trust (MRCH) is managed by Simon Gergel who is chief investment officer, UK equities, at Allianz Global Investors. He stresses that being a value investor does not mean buying bad businesses, and the polarised UK market is enabling him to invest in high-quality companies at reasonable prices. While the manager experienced a tough period of relative performance during the coronavirus-led market sell-off in early 2020, he adhered to his long-term, high-conviction process, which was the correct strategy as shown by the meaningful performance improvement in the chart below. MRCH consistently offers an above-market dividend yield (currently 5.3%).