3. Below you'll find answers to the questions we get asked the most

    We are a Global investment manager; we are currently managing 12 Investment Trust and 33 OEIC (Open Ended Investment Companies) Funds which we market to UK Investors. You can find more detail on what we do on our Actual Investors page.

    What do Baillie Gifford not do?

    We don’t offer direct investment in ISAs, SIPPs/Personal Pensions or Savings Plans and we do not offer wealth management services. We are also not regulated to offer investment or financial advice. If this is something that you needed, My Local Advisor is a website that allows you to search for authorised intermediaries in your area. You can visit their site on www.mylocaladvisor.co.uk.  

     

     

     

    New investors – If you wish to invest directly, our minimum investment amount for a new investor is £100,000 per fund and the minimum top up amount is £1,000 per fund. Please note that these minimum investment levels are only applicable if investing directly with us. If you invest with a fund platform it will be the platform minimum investment limits that apply.

    New investors should complete our application form, you can download this from the Documents section of our website for the fund that you wish to invest in or we can send this to you. If you wish this form to be posted to you, please contact our Client Relations team on 0800 917 2113 or email us at literature@bailliegifford.com. Please note that you will also need to read the latest Key Information Document and Supplementary Information Document for the fund before investing, they can again be obtained via the Documents section of our website or by contacting the Client Relations team as above.

    If you are unable to send a paper copy of the form, we will accept a PDF version by email. Please contact us at OEIC.dealing@bailliegifford.com for more details. Please return your completed form to: Baillie Gifford & Co Limited, FREEPOST, Calton Square, 1 Greenside Row, Edinburgh EH1 3AN.

    On receipt of your form, provided the dealing team can carry out a successful electronic check on your identity, they can proceed and open an account for you. They would then provide you with our bank details to transfer funds to us. If the dealing team cannot verify your identity electronically, they will request documents from you and this will delay your application.

    Existing investors – You can invest by telephone subject to our minimum top up investment limit of £1,000. Telephone dealing is available for existing investors across all funds except for our non-UCITS funds, please read the latest Key Investor Information document and Supplementary Information Document before you call with an investment instruction. Instructions for non-UCITS funds need to be in writing. Our dealing team can be contacted on 0800 917 4752.

    Investment trusts

    If you want to invest in our investment trusts, we do not have the facility for you to do this directly, you can invest using a stockbroker, a fund platform or a third party. You can find details of the fund platforms that we know offer our trusts on the How to Invest page. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of where our funds are available.  There are other providers and platforms you can invest with.

    Baillie Gifford is an investment manager and we’re not authorised to provide investment advice, the Money Advice Service can be a great place to start for further information for investment goals, or by engaging with a financial advisor.  If you did need advice, My Local Advisor is a website that allows you to search for authorised intermediaries in your area. You can visit their site on www.mylocaladvisor.co.uk.  

    At Baillie Gifford we exclusively invest for the long term across all our strategies as we believe this is where we can provide the best returns for our clients. We appreciate that the short-term share price moves of our funds, and underlying investments, can be a cause for concern. However, we do ask all our clients to share our long-term investment horizon. 

    In the short run, share prices can be volatile which we accept as long-term investors. Market sentiment and external news events can impact prices before considering what’s happening at an individual company. The stock market places undue emphasis on short term news flow and feels compelled to ascribe narrative to make sense of share price movements. But company progress doesn’t happen over a month or a quarter. Taking a view of at least five years on the prospects of each company we invest in helps us to focus on what eventually drives share price returns: the revenue and earnings growth achieved by each company. That’s where we focus our research and where we think we have an edge over the market.  

    Our strength lies in stock picking and being a patient supporter of these companies. It is our job to recognise signal from noise and we believe it’s important to concentrate on each individual company’s progress. We have conviction in this approach, and we will continue to focus our efforts on investing in the most innovative companies over this long-term time horizon.

    We regularly produce articles and webinars on our funds and trusts. If you wish to see the latest views from the fund managers, you can view these on the Insights page for each of our funds. You can view information on our funds in our Funds section. We also produce Annual and Interim Reports for all our trusts and funds, you can view these in the Documents section for each fund. These include commentary from the managers and detail on holdings that they have bought and sold in the previous six-month period. The Key Information Documents and Key Investor Information Documents and Prospectuses for the trusts and OEIC Funds detail the risks associated with the trusts and funds. If you are unsure whether a trust or fund is suitable for you, as stated above we cannot provide advice, you may wish to consult a financial advisor.

    An investment trust can hold unlisted stocks and has gearing, OEIC (Open Ended Investment Companies) funds do not do this.

    Each has a different pricing method. An OEIC fund is single priced and has a daily valuation point. An investment trust has bid and offer prices and shares in the trust are traded on the London Stock Exchange.

    You can find more information regarding Investment Trusts on the Association of Investment Companies website.

     

    We do not have an online service for individual investors. If you do hold a direct account with us in one of our OEIC funds, we will send you account statements in February and August.  If you place a deal with us, we will send a contract note to you on the first business day after the valuation point at which we deal. Our Client Relations team can also provide you with account information by contacting them on 0800 917 2113 or by email at trustenquiries@bailliegifford.com.  Please note that you will need to have your Client Reference number to hand if contacting us.

    If you have an OEIC (Open Ended Investment Company) holding with us, please write to us at:

    Baillie Gifford & Co Ltd
    Calton Square
    1 Greenside Row
    Edinburgh
    EH1 3AN

    If you hold a share certificate for one of our investment trusts, your address will need to be updated with the main Registrar, Computershare. A share certificate will have a Shareholder Reference number typically starting with C00. You can write to them at:

    Computershare Investor Services PLC
    The Pavilions
    Bridgwater Road
    Bristol
    BS99 6ZZ

    You can also call them, contact telephone numbers for each trust are listed below;

    • Baillie Gifford China Growth Trust – 0370 707 1410
    • Baillie Gifford European Growth Trust – 0370 889 4086
    • Baillie Gifford Japan Trust – 0370  889 3221
    • Baillie Gifford Shin Nippon Trust – 0370 889 3223
    • Baillie Gifford UK Growth Fund – 0370 702 0000
    • Baillie Gifford US Growth Trust – 0370 702 0000
    • Scottish American Investment Company – 0370 707 1282
    • Scottish Mortgage Investment Company – 0370 707 1300
    • Pacific Horizon Investment Trust – 0370 707 1229
    • Monks Investment Trust – 0370 707 1170
    • Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust – 0370 707 1643
    • Keystone Positive Change Investment Trust - 0370 703 6269

    If you held a Share Plan, ISA or Children’s Savings Plan previously with us, please note that we no longer hold these plans, they were transferred to Hargreaves Lansdown in August 2019 unless you specified that you wished to transfer to another provider.  Hargreaves Lansdown can be contacted on 0117 900 9000 or at the below address:

    Hargreaves Lansdown
    1 College Square South
    Anchor Road
    Bristol
    BS1 5HL

    No – we do not have the facility for you to buy our trusts direct from us. You can invest through a stockbroker, fund platform or another provider. You can view a list of available platforms on our How to Invest page.

    Application forms for our OEIC funds can be downloaded from the Documents section of the fund that you are interested in. Alternatively, you can contact our Client Relations team on 0800 917 2113 or email literature@bailliegifford.com and they can send these to you.

    All existing and prospective clients are urged to exercise caution when discussing financial products or transactions.

    Access our fraudulent activity statement here

    Both of the figures include the total returns, however they are covering different time periods.  Periodic shows performance over 6 months, 1, 3 and 5 years from the date shown on the factsheet, whereas discrete is showing annual performance over specified 12-month periods.

    Our OEIC funds are single priced. Our funds have a 10am valuation point each day and that is what the day’s price is based upon.
     
    The dealing price and valuation price are one and the same thing and that price does not fluctuate throughout the day if a large purchase or sale takes place as our funds are forward priced.  If we receive your instructions to purchase shares before 10am on a business day, the shares will be purchased at that day’s valuation point. Otherwise the price will be based on the next day’s valuation point, this is forward pricing. If a large transaction takes place later in the day, this may impact the following day’s price.
     
    To arrive at the price we take a 10am snapshot of prices from all markets.  This means that, whilst some of the prices we receive will be from open markets, some of the prices we receive are from markets that are closed.  We have a Fair Value Pricing Group who meet daily at 10:45am to consider whether there is any significant market news which may not be reflected in the prices we have received and which we should take account of for our daily pricing.  It is a regulatory obligation on managers of UK funds to ensure that they are priced at fair value.  This fair value adjustment means that it is possible for the prices of our funds to move differently to the prices in underlying markets.
     
    In determining whether or not to make a Fair Value Price adjustment our Fair Value Price Group will consider available market information. Available market information means a combination of movements on open markets and movements in futures markets.
     
    We do not give details on how we fair value the funds to clients. The reason for this is we do not want clients trying to second guess or front run where our fund prices are likely to go.
     
    You can find further information on pricing in the Fund Prospectus which can be downloaded from the Documents section of our website for the fund that you are interested in or from the Literature section.

    We buy shares to three decimal points.

    If you choose to invest directly with us, the shares would be held as a direct investment, we do not offer an ISA, Junior ISA, SIPP or Child Trust Fund. We also do not offer an online service, which some platforms and other providers offer. See our question above - How do I invest with you - for further details.

    It would be your responsibility to check the terms with the fund platform you wish to transact with.

    Computershare Investor Services have a mailing list for our trusts. You can contact them on the numbers below:

    • Baillie Gifford China Growth Trust – 0370 707 1410
    • Baillie Gifford European Growth Trust – 0370 889 4086
    • Baillie Gifford Japan Trust – 0370  889 3221
    • Baillie Gifford Shin Nippon Trust – 0370 889 3223
    • Baillie Gifford UK Growth Fund – 0370 702 0000
    • Baillie Gifford US Growth Trust – 0370 702 0000
    • Scottish American Investment Company – 0370 707 1282
    • Scottish Mortgage Investment Company – 0370 707 1300
    • Pacific Horizon Investment Trust – 0370 707 1229
    • Monks Investment Trust - 0370 707 1170
    • Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust – 0370 707 1643
    • Keystone Positive Change Investment Trust - 0370 703 6269

     

    You will need to register for our webinars via our website. Once registered, we will email you with a zoom link that you can use to join the webinar. Please note that you will need to download zoom before the webinar to ensure that you can join.

    This can occur if the security settings in your email account don’t allow our content to load. If this does happen, our emails have a ‘view online option’, in the top right section of the email that you can click on and you can then view the content.

    Client Relations Team
    Telephone: 0800 917 2112
    Email: trustenquiries@bailliegifford.com

    OEIC Dealing Team
    Telephone: 0800 917 4750
    Fax: 0131 275 3954

    Baillie Gifford & Co Ltd
    Calton Square
    1 Greenside Row
    Edinburgh
    EH1 3AN

    You can complain to us by telephone by contacting our Client Relations team on 0800 917 2112, by email to IndividualInvestorComplaints@bailliegifford.com or in writing to us at:
     
    Client Relations Team
    Calton Square
    1 Greenside Row
    Edinburgh
    EH1 3AN.

    Our Complaint Handling Procedures leaflet has further information on our complaints process.

  4. The below section is intended to provide further information

    We recognise this is a deeply distressing time for you. Further information, including organisations and charities, can be found in our Bereavement Guide.

    Please send us an original or certified copy of the Power of Attorney document. The certified copy must be certified by a solicitor. We also need to verify the identity of the Power of Attorney, an initial attempt will be made to verify your identity electronically, failing this we would require two identity documents. We will contact you if these are required.

    We recognise that there could be many different circumstances where you need further assistance. We’ve included the names of some charities that may be able to assist you;

    Please contact our Client Relations team on 0800 917 2112 or by email at trustenquiries@bailliegifford.com, the team can arrange this for you.