Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust — Annual Report 2015

Managers' Review — James Anderson and Tom Slater (year ended 31 March 2015)

Context. Anderson's mid-formation review: the trust is now "a true global growth portfolio" with the top five holdings unchanged. Contains the fullest early statement of the philosophy — open-ended growth, long time horizons "beyond the patience of most investors", and the admission that the trust had historically been "insufficiently patient" in selling its best companies (Amazon above all).

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Managers' Review

There has been little change in the essentials of the portfolio. Twenty seven of the last year's top 30 holdings are still owned. The top 5 holdings are in the same companies. Our aim continues to be to identify and then faithfully support outstanding and differentiated companies with open-ended growth opportunities for as long as their virtues remain intact and their advantages underestimated. The time horizons of these processes are long and beyond the patience of most investors. Over the last ten years, Scottish Mortgage has steadily moved towards being a true global growth portfolio rather than a collection of individual regional mandates managed with reference to local indices. As this process has developed we have been driven by our core investment beliefs (once again set out on page 14) but we have also been guided by three observations that have remained intact over this decade. We thought that a market scarred by the memory of the apparent bubble of the late 1990's was structurally unable to grasp the power of technological change. We believed that China was transforming the global economy (and increasingly that it was profoundly different from other emerging markets). We feared that the flaws of the Western financial system threatened much that was encouraging in the global economy and markets. We were disconcerted by quite how right this anxiety turned out to be in 200809. So these themes have served us well. Yet we are concerned that we need to renew our thinking. It seems to us that all three themes have been sufficiently important that they have in turn altered the investment world. In doing so their own meaning has changed irrevocably. We would like to explore this topic by topic. Accelerating Change and the Redundancy of Technology as a Sector Our original contentions surrounding the attractions of technology investing are close to exhaustion. Most of those who vowed never again to invest in technology have retired or forgotten their promises. Others simply sulk in their tents. In a world in which the youthful and controversial Uber can be valued at over $40bn as a private company it is hard to contend that animal spirits are still entirely repressed.

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. NBCUniversal/Getty Images. Yet still it appears to us that seemingly shocking exponential change is actually more predictable than most market commentators accept. From Moore's Law in semiconductors to Carlson's Curve projecting genomic improvements the pattern of price and performance gains are well-established but much ignored by static financial modelling. Moreover, by the time we tend to have large holdings in companies creating and exploiting these improvements, the underlying trends have normally been securely established. We are not gamblers on speculative conjunctures but respectful observers of the powers of foundational technologies and the application of time and capital. We believe it to be of paramount importance for investors to recognise that the scale of the changes driven by Moore's Law, sophisticated software, mobile communications and the internet are just too all encompassing to be defined and confined as a discrete sector. This is the way of successful technologies. Electricity went through the same process once upon a time. What we now have is almost every business exploiting foundational electronics technologies to develop and often revolutionise their industries. It seems misguided to classify the companies leading such surges of productivity and improvement as a separate technology sector. Thinking in such terms all too often unduly narrows the perception of the opportunities on offer to the beneficiaries and the dangers to the incumbents. The potential revolutions we see looming in healthcare as genomic science and gene therapies drive towards personalising medicine, improving clinical outcomes and even cutting costs are securely based on deep scientific and technological progress. So too is the strength of Tesla's challenge to the automobile and utility sectors. For retailers it makes no sense to ignore Amazon and Alibaba just because their challenges are driven by Moore's Law. Any temptation for newspaper and advertising executives to dismiss Google, Tencent and Facebook because they are internet technology companies has proven deeply dangerous. Yet investors indulge in such mental tangles through their preoccupation with index definitions.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. SHANNON STAPLETON/Reuters/Corbis.

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3D printing for travel to Mars. Bloomberg/Getty Images. China, Emerging Markets and Corporate Success Five years ago we argued that China was profoundly different from other emerging markets in its ability to sustain fundamental economic improvements. From education to life expectancy improvements to a huge middle class, it displays an unparalleled scale and significance. The Trust once offered a fairly broad exposure to emerging markets but subsequently moved to a concentration on China's most promising domestic companies. Five years later, it is very striking that it has been China's mobile communications, advertising and e-commerce companies that have built imposing businesses and enjoyed exceptional share price performance whilst much else has fallen shy of initial promises. Tencent, for example, now enjoys a market value higher than HSBC or IBM and a multiple of that of its erstwhile emerging market peers such as Petrobras and Gazprom. The success of Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu has only been equalled by the global giants of the West Coast of the USA. This is a remarkable achievement. Our concern at this point is that these forces of modernity and voices of vibrant communication are increasingly discordant with the conservative and repressive tenor of the government. Whilst the fall from economic and investment grace of Russia and Brazil has been dramatic and terrible to behold, the Indian stock market has suffered no such setback. The election of the questionable Mr. Modi has been greeted with prolonged acclaim. In order to check whether my scepticism is justified our colleague Peter Singlehurst has recently spent several months in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. In general Peter's trip has not dispelled my concerns. But we have been persuaded that a younger generation of business leaders carries evidence of a more dynamic and enlightened model of capitalism. We bought a holding in Flipkart, the Indian unquoted e-commerce leader, which we think exemplifies the improvement but which will also ultimately require a broader creation and distribution of wealth to succeed.

Reinventing the Financial System There is still precious little evidence that the financial system has meaningfully reformed itself. Indeed the saga of corrupted incentives and unjustified greed continues apace. Banks that once had some claim to relative moral authority and practical leadership such as HSBC and JPMorgan have shown themselves to be as out of control as their presumed inferiors. What may have changed is that traditional banks and investment banks may be becoming less central to the economic system. This is partly the result of regulatory pressures that may have been too limited but have demanded sufficient new equity to make previous methods unprofitable even in normal times. But it is also that the banks are rapidly being undercut by new methods. Finance itself is being attacked by innovation of a rather more profound and promising nature than it has itself supplied. An example of this is Lending Club which is the world's largest online marketplace for consumer credit. We participated in the IPO in late 2014. We believe that it can provide a better system with lower credit spreads than traditional models. With Alibaba and Tencent making significant progress in their own financial services efforts we think this is a global trend. Emergent Themes of the Future We can only conclude that we need to abandon our previous themes. We would suggest that three new sets of issues will be crucial in the next five years. -- Will major and accelerating improvements in core technologies lead to progress in healthcare, energy and transportation analogous to those in information technology in recent years? Or will secular stagnation and limited productivity gains dominate? These questions are already inherent in our thoughts above. Our current answers are markedly more optimistic than those espoused by most practitioners and commentators. -- Which companies will prove to have the greatest profitability resilience and longevity? There has long been a presumption in markets that some industries are the epitome of steady earnings and cash flow growth whilst also offering the prospect of enduring as businesses for decades if not centuries. The allure of such stocks has been particularly great since 200809 as investors have sought low volatility so determinedly. There has been an equal and opposite horror of companies that historically and industrially have been perceived to be volatile, cyclical or subject to competitive boom and bust. Our hypothesis is that the years ahead may prove to be very different. It seems to us that several industries, such as healthcare, oil majors and utilities, which have been havens of stability may face dramatic change. Global brands may follow national grocers into a margin storm. At the same time all too many traditional quoted companies have failed to reinvest in their businesses in order to produce earnings to the satisfaction of the financial industry. As aggressive unquoted enterprises and founder run competitors with less pressure to generate immediate earnings become ever more prominent, the complacent incumbents will be

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under serious pressure. Equally we believe that the long-term ambitions and visions, network strengths, low capital requirements, technological strength and sheer intelligence of the aggressors may mean that their longevity is more akin to that of General Electric than that of Socks.com. Future vulnerabilities will have little in common with the dictates of risk models. -- Corporations, states and citizens. Who wins? Since the late 1970's capital has enjoyed ideological and practical dominance over labour. Almost everywhere and almost regardless of political labels the state has encouraged and endorsed this situation. It is unclear whether this pattern will remain intact in the coming decade. Many strains are already apparent. From concern over marked inequality in the developed world to rising wages in China the compact seems under threat. At the same time relations between most states and many corporations has been frayed by battles over tax versus globalisation, and security versus freedom of expression. It is unclear to us where the arguments and economics will settle or whether the populaces of the world prefer the offerings of consumer and electronic capitalism to the paternalism and resources of the state. This is not just an issue for the West. Iran's future will be a fascinating if unusual example of such evolving controversies whilst a revolution in China might prove the most important possibility of all.

Concluding Comments In the course of the year I was delighted that the Board promoted Tom Slater to Joint Manager. Tom has contributed hugely to our investment record in recent years. His involvement provides an excellent justification for confidence that we can investigate and navigate the emergent themes in the years to come. Plainly we have much to think about in the decade to follow (and beyond). But the challenges and uncertainties should not be allowed to obscure the excitement and opportunities that the current investment world offers us. We are lucky enough to meet remarkable companies, both quoted and unquoted, often with extraordinary leaders and frequently offering almost unimaginable opportunities and rewards. It is an extraordinary era for growth investors. James Anderson

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Scottish Mortgage's Approach to Investment Risk

This paper outlines the approach used by the Managers and Board to identify and mitigate the risks that we take for Scottish Mortgage in pursuit of long-term returns. Unfortunately, those looking for a straightforward answer or a single number to summarise this multifaceted topic will be disappointed. The primary risk is the potential for permanent loss of capital. There are many other definitions but our objective is to generate longterm capital growth for our shareholders. To achieve this objective we must assume risk and accept the possibility that this may lead to a reduction rather than growth in the Trust's capital base. This may sound obvious. The investment management industry and academic community have found many ways of describing and measuring risk that have little to do with this fundamental aim. One part of the explanation for this is that risk is incredibly difficult to perceive or quantify. The fortunes of individual companies are tied up in the complex system of the global economy over which is layered the self-referential voting machine of the stock market. Consequently, many choose to view volatility as an easily quantifiable heuristic for risk. We do not think that this is a good substitution. Stock price volatility reflects many factors which have little to do with the profitability and outlook for a company in five or ten years' time. This is where we believe real investment risk resides, not in the daily fluctuations of the market. The focus on volatility is damaging. It increases the pressure to listen to the overwhelming clamour of stock markets and act on the associated newsflow. Avoiding this temptation is difficult. More difficult though is to answer the real question: what are the risks we are taking and how can we understand and manage them? Effective Number of Stocks Central to our view of how to manage risk is the requirement to have a diverse portfolio. In pursuit of attractive returns we want to assume a number of different risks and not several versions of the same one. This means owning a collection of assets that have different fundamental drivers. We are frequently wrong about the opportunities we are presented with. Acknowledging this, we want to try to understand the effect of misjudgments and ensure that they don't unintentionally undermine a broad range of holdings simultaneously. The first step in doing this is to ensure there are a sufficient number of positions in the portfolio. This is more complex than simply counting the number of holdings. We need to consider the effective number of holdings. To understand this, consider a portfolio with two holdings. One accounts for 99.9% of the assets and the other for 0.1%. Whilst this portfolio has two holdings it is essentially a one-stock portfolio (it has an effective number of holdings which is very close to one) whereas a portfolio with 50% in each holding is a genuine two-stock portfolio (it has an effective number of holdings of two). So, the effective number of holdings in the portfolio can be thought of as the number of holdings the portfolio would have if each of the positions were equally sized1. The Board looks at the effective number of holdings on a regular basis as a guide to the degree of concentration in position sizing. It is necessary to consider the effective number of holdings because the portfolio is a long way from being equally weighted. There is good reason for this. The structure of returns over the 1 n 1For those of a mathematical orientation: Effective number of stocks = (wi)2 i =1 Where wi represents the portfolio weights in each of the n stocks in a portfolio. 12 Annual Report 2015

past ten years exhibits a clear pattern. We have made mistakes and losses in individual holdings. We have also had some very successful investments. Thankfully the maximum we have been able to lose is the capital that we have invested. The returns from the winners have been several times our investment and it is this asymmetry which has been crucial. This outcome is not unique to Scottish Mortgage. The structure of returns is also present in the broader market. Looking at the rolling five-year returns for each stock in the S&P 500 in the thirty years between 1984 and 2013 gives around eighteen thousand investment opportunities. This data set doesn't follow a normal distribution. The best 1% of stocks returned 13-fold over five years, the top 5% returned just over 5-fold and the top 20% returned just over 2.5-fold. Investing in about one quarter of the opportunities resulted in a loss.

Percentile 99% 95% 90% 80% 50% 30% 20% 10%

Five year return 13.0x 5.4x 3.8x 2.6x 1.5x 1.1x 0.9x 0.6x

Per annum 67% 40% 30% 21% 8% 2% -3% -10%

To benefit from this return structure, we have to maximise the chances of identifying stocks with the potential to return a multiple of the initial investment. We then have to maximise the chances of owning the shares for long enough for the Trust to benefit from this return. This shines a different light on the task of managing risk. Most investments are mediocre, some will destroy capital and losses are almost inevitable. Consequently one of the significant risks is failing to identify big winners. Equally, we must guard against fear of concentration and volatility prompting us to reduce or sell those winners prematurely. Not owning, or aggressively reducing, our holding in Amazon would have significantly lowered the returns we would have generated for shareholders over the past ten years. This is the tension we work with on a day-to-day basis as we seek to maintain diversity but also continue to back the great management teams that run the Trust's successful holdings. Concentrations in the Portfolio Having established a practical way of quantifying the number of positions we then consider how these positions relate to one another. We do not attempt to do this by crunching the data on the relative movements of stock prices. Observing that a pair of share prices has been correlated in the past does not, in our view,

Diversity is in the detail.

The Index is risky.

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tell us a great deal about the risks of owning them. Instead, we assess the business models of the companies in the portfolio, the environment in which they operate and the drivers of growth. We do not separate the process of evaluating risks from the process of making investments. Whilst we appreciate the views and advice from our colleagues in Baillie Gifford's risk team, we strongly believe that, as managers, we must challenge ourselves to think critically about risk. We also benefit greatly from having a board with a broad range of experience that can offer different perspectives on the issues and help us to refine our approach. We consider carefully where companies are benefiting from the same underlying trends in order to identify concentrations within the portfolio. For example, we believe the largest concentration in the portfolio at present is in companies that are benefiting from advertising moving from traditional forms of media to the Internet. The scale and pace of this change reflects a massive shift in consumer behaviour which is throwing up some of the most exciting investment opportunities. Given the returns we think can be achieved, this is a risk we want to take acknowledging that if consumer behaviour changes or advertising budgets stop making this transition, it will have a deleterious effect on several of our holdings. We will continue to think carefully about the size of this exposure relative to our expectations for returns. Other concentrations we have identified include those companies benefiting from increasing use of computers and mobile devices for commerce, those whose business is driven by consumption in what we believe are structurally growing economies, those western brands with appeal in developing markets and companies whose prospects are tied closely to global industrial growth. We regularly discuss the applicability of these groupings and they also feed our research agenda. Companies that bring new growth-drivers and associated risks are welcome as they increase our diversity. Equally, having identified the powerful underlying dynamics that are driving the portfolio, finding stocks which benefit from more than one of these drivers and therefore sit at the intersection of our risk groupings is also appealing. The Index is Risky We believe that our limited overlap with the index is an important component of reducing risk. In his report, James Anderson highlights the issues we think will be crucial over the next five years. He raises the question of whether progress in important core technologies will lead to changes in healthcare, energy and transportation. Similarly he touches on the growing threat of new entrants in the financial services industry. Taken together these

industries represent a large proportion of indices and will be an important determinant of market returns. Companies with new business models underpinned by technology and run by founder-owners are investing aggressively at a time when many listed entities are diverting their cashflows to dividends and share buybacks. There is a good chance that the newcomers will reshape much of what is currently considered to be safe. We think this is a significant risk for investors and not one that we wish to take. We believe it is very important for an actively-managed portfolio to offer a very different exposure to that provided by investing in the market index. Whilst it is appropriate to measure the performance of the fund over longer periods of time by comparing it to a proxy for the overall market, we find it unhelpful to consult an index when building the portfolio. We don't decide upon our exposure to countries, sectors or companies by considering how they are categorised or ranked by index-makers. One way to measure the degree of difference from the index is to look at active share. The active share of a portfolio is the proportion of the portfolio that differs from the benchmark index. As a simple example, if the index contained only a single stock then the active share of any portfolio would be the proportion of the portfolio that was not in that one stock. Generally, the less overlap a portfolio has with its benchmark, the higher its active share will be. Scottish Mortgage's active share is over 90%. In practice this means that the returns we deliver are likely to be very different from the index and academic studies would suggest that high active share has a positive association with investment performance. Summary The risk we seek to minimise is the loss of our shareholders' capital. The structure of market returns is such that losses in individual stocks are inevitable so we must also ensure we find and hold on to stocks that can return us a multiple of our investment. We do this whilst trying to maintain diversity through having a sufficient number of effective holdings and employing a qualitative process to review continually the concentrations of underlying business drivers. A high level of active share means that the risks inherent in the portfolio are likely to be very different from those present in a broad market portfolio. In pursuing this approach we hope to deliver attractive returns over the long term for our shareholders.

Tom Slater

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The Managers' Core Investment Beliefs

Whilst fund managers claim to spend much of their careers

visions that are barely noticed by the markets. There is more

assessing the competitive advantage of companies they are

in the investment world than the Financial Times or Wall Street

notoriously reluctant to perform any such analysis on themselves.

Journal describe.

The tendency is to cite recent performance as evidence of skill despite the luck, randomness and mean-reverting characteristics of most such data. If this does not suffice then attention turns to a discussion of the high educational qualifications, hard work and exotic remuneration packages that the fund manager enjoys. Sometimes the procedural details of the investment process are outlined with heavy emphasis on risk controls. Little attention is given to either the distinctiveness of the approach or the strategic advantages the manager might enjoy in order to make imitation improbable. We think we should try to do better than this.

-- We are global in stock selection, asset allocation and attribution. We are active not passive or far worse index plus in stock selection. Holding sizes reflect the potential upside and its probability (or otherwise) rather than the combination of the market capitalisation and geographical location of the company and its headquarters. We do not have sufficient confidence in our top-down asset allocation skills to wish to override stock selection. We do not have enough confidence in our market timing abilities to wish to add or remove gearing at frequent intervals. We do, however, have strong conviction that our portfolio should be

-- We are long term in our investment

comparatively concentrated, and that it is of

decisions. It is only over periods of at

little use to shareholders to tinker around

least five years that the competitive

the edges of indices. We think this

advantages and managerial excellence

produces better investment results and it

of companies becomes apparent. It

certainly makes us more committed

is these characteristics that we want

shareholders in companies. We suspect

to identify and support. We own

that selecting stocks on the basis of the

companies rather than rent shares.

past (their current market capitalisation) is a

We do not regard ourselves as experts

policy designed to protect the security of

in forecasting the oscillations of

tenure of asset managers rather than to

economies or the mood swings of

build the wealth of shareholders.

markets. Indeed we think that it is hard

Companies that are large and established

to excel in such areas as this is where so many market participants focus and

We are growth investors.

tend to be internally complacent and inflexible. They are often vulnerable to

where so little of the value of

Frans Lanting/Corbis.

assault by more ambitious and vibrant

companies lies. Equally Baillie Gifford is

newcomers.

more likely to possess competitive advantages for the good of shareholders when it adopts a long term perspective. We are a 100 year old Scottish partnership. We think about our own business over decades not quarters. Such stability may not be exciting but it does encourage patience in this most impatient of industries. We only judge our investment performance over five year plus time horizons. In truth it takes at least a decade to provide adequate evidence of investment skill.

-- We are Growth stock investors. Such has been the preference for Value and the search to arbitrage away minor rating differentials that investors find it very hard to acknowledge the extraordinary growth rates and returns that can be found today. The growth that we are particularly interested in is of an explosive nature and often requires minimal fixed assets or indeed capital. We think of it as Growth at Unreasonable Prices' rather than the traditional discipline of Growth at a

-- The investment management industry is ill-equipped to deal

Reasonable Price'. We need to be willing to pay high multiples

with the behavioural and emotional challenges inherent in

of immediate earnings because the scale of future potential

today's capital markets. Our time frame and ownership

and returns can be so dramatic. On the stocks that flourish

structure help us to fight these dangers. We are besieged by

the valuation will have turned out to be derisorily low. On the

news, data and opinion. The bulk of this information is of little

others we will lose money.

significance but it implores you to rapid and usually futile action. This can be particularly damaging at times of stress. Academic research argues that most individuals dislike financial losses twice as much as they take pleasure in gains. We fear that for fund managers this relationship is close to tenfold. Internal and external pressures make the avoidance of loss dominant. This is damaging in a portfolio context. We need to be willing to accept loss if there is an equal or greater chance of (almost) unlimited gain.

-- We believe that it is our first duty to shareholders to limit fees. Both the investment management fee (0.30%) and ongoing charges ratio (0.48% as at 31 March 2015) are low by comparative standards but at least adequate in absolute terms. We think that the malign impact of high fees is frequently underestimated. The difference between an ongoing charges ratio of 0.48% and one of 1.5% may not appear great but if the perspective is altered to think of costs as a percentage of expected annual returns then the contrast

-- We are very dubious about the value of routine information.

becomes obvious. If annual returns average 10% then this is

We have little confidence in quarterly earnings and none in the

the difference between removing approximately 5% or 15% of

views of investment banks. We try to screen out rather than

your returns each year. Nor do we believe in a performance

incorporate their noise. In contrast we think that the world

fee. Usually it undermines investment performance. It

offers joyous opportunities to hear views, perspectives and

increases pressure and narrows perspective.

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