Caledonia Investments

Time, well invested

As a large, self-managed, family-controlled investment company, Caledonia Investments (CLDN) offers a combination of characteristics that set it apart. Chief of these is the ability to ignore the gyrations of fickle markets and take a genuinely long-term view about where to invest its assets.

Few listed funds have an explicit objective of growing shareholders’ capital and income in real terms, but CLDN does, and has a long track record of success in this regard.

CLDN has an idiosyncratic portfolio that cannot be pigeonholed by investment style. This comprises a focused portfolio of good quality listed equities, some carefully-chosen and (as its history of realisations might suggest) conservatively-valued direct private equity positions, and third-party managed funds giving a spread of exposure to unquoted US and Asian companies.

Puzzlingly, CLDN is currently trading on a wide discount, but long-term investors may see this as a great opportunity.

Inflation-beating returns with an eye to riskCLDN aims to grow the real value of net assets and dividends paid to its shareholders over the long term, whilst managing risk to avoid the permanent loss of capital.

Source: Morningstar, Marten & Co

Share price and premium/(discount)Time period 30/04/2019 to 07/05/2024

Source: Morningstar, Marten & Co

Performance over five yearsTime period 30/04/2019 to 30/04/2024

Source: Morningstar, Marten & Co

Generating real, absolute returns, over the long term

Significant founding family stake nurtures a culture of long-term thinking

CLDN has a rich history, having evolved from a family-run shipping business established in the late 1800s to a broadly diversified global investment trust today. The founding Cayzer family still owns about 48% of the company and a number of their representatives sit on the board (see page X). This has nurtured a culture of long-term thinking and an entrepreneurial environment, but with a measured approach to risk.

Backing growing companies

CLDN’s leadership team believes that the company’s core strength is that – having learnt from considerable experience – it is good at owning businesses and providing the capital that they need to grow. The investment approach has evolved over time but could be summed up as identifying and backing growing companies, while seeking to manage company specific risks.

Objective

Growing the real value of net assets and dividends

In line with its objective of growing the real value of its net assets and dividends, CLDN has set itself the target of generating long-term compounding real returns that outperform inflation by 3%-6% over the medium to long term, and the FTSE All-Share index over 10 years.

Measuring success

For the purposes of this report, we have substituted the MSCI United Kingdom Index (MSCI UK) for the All-Share. In addition, given its global portfolio, we have compared CLDN to the MSCI All Countries World Index in sterling (MSCI ACWI). As a measure of inflation, we have used UK CPIH, which is the consumer prices index including owner occupiers’ housing costs.

However, it is important to stress that none of the portfolio is managed to beat a benchmark – that is simply not how the CLDN approach works. For example, the equity managers buy companies they like for the long term not large companies that everyone else is buying just because they dominate an index.

Neither is performance benchmarked against any peer group and we have not sought to do so in this note.

Investment approach

Do not lose money – be more Roger

For the CLDN team, the first rule of investing is do not lose money. Nothing is ever perfect, but the important thing is that if anything does not go to plan, the long-term impact should be minimal. The team makes an analogy with Roger Federer’s playing style of trying to minimise unforced errors.

Time is our friend

CLDN believes that taking a long-term view and being patient have been key to its success.

Accomplishing CLDN’s objectives requires a great team of people and a willingness to tap into outside expertise when appropriate.

Strategy is set by the CEO and the board has an oversight function

Everything is managed from one office (which the trust owns – see page X). Strategy is set by the CEO with support from the executive team. The board provides oversight, checks, and balances, but it is not involved in day-to-day decisions. However, it will sign off on big ticket items such as a change to the private capital portfolio.

Day-to-day investment decisions are signed off by an investment committee

All investment decisions are signed off by an investment committee made up of CEO Mat Masters, CFO Rob Memmott, company secretary Richard Webster, and the team heads – Jamie Cayzer Colvin (head of funds), Tom Leader (head of private capital), Ben Archer (co-head of public companies), and Alan Murran (co-head of public companies).

They find that debating the merits of each investment decision promotes inactivity over a trading mentality, in line with CLDN’s overall ethos.

The team is focused solely on CLDN’s success and not distracted by running outside money.

Three pools

Portfolio distributed across three pools

CLDN’s capital is invested across a number of distinct pools. From six pools of capital in 2010, the approach has been refined down to three. That does not mean that there will never be another – the approach is continually evolving to reflect the opportunities available. However, such an opportunity would have to be there for the long term – for example, they would not add a fixed interest sleeve currently just because there is a cyclical opportunity.

The funds portfolio, which has been operational since 2010, is the most recent addition to the portfolio.

As one way of achieving an appropriately diversified portfolio, the trust’s investments are grouped into three distinct areas:

Public companies

Capital and income pools of listed equities

The public companies allocation is run by a single team. The strategic allocation to this part of the portfolio has been set at 30%–40%, but this pool of assets is further subdivided into a capital portfolio – headed up by Alan Murran – and an income portfolio – headed up by Ben Archer. Altogether, they hold about 30 stocks.

High quality, well-understood businesses

In both cases, these are global portfolios of high-quality businesses that the team feels that it has a good understanding of. These companies should have underlying growth and pricing power. Companies with little trading history, unprofitable companies, and recent IPOs are discounted. There is also a general aversion to banks and companies sensitive to commodity price fluctuations.

Targeting 10% a year on the capital portfolio and 7% a year on the income portfolio

The portfolios are invested to achieve a total return target of 10% a year on the capital portfolio and 7% a year on the income portfolio.

The capital portfolio is unconstrained. Position sizes will typically be about 1–1.5% of CLDN’s portfolio. Given the importance ascribed to the quality of these businesses, many will pay a dividend, and this part of the portfolio makes a meaningful contribution to the trust’s revenue account.

Think about what might go wrong

The team does a great deal of due diligence on potential investments, and it is quite common that an idea is rejected. The outlook for these companies is considered over the long term and emphasis is placed on determining what might go wrong with their thesis. Companies that appear to be good at optimising returns on capital are favoured. They should have robust balance sheets, and it helps if there is a big investor standing behind them.

Do your research and be nimble when the chance arises

The team will form a view of an appropriate valuation for a stock (based on historical valuation ranges for this and similar stocks) and more often than not, will feel that the stock market is being over-optimistic in its valuation. Nevertheless, periods of stock market volatility – such as the March 2020 COVID panic – can provide an opportunity to invest at attractive prices. It is important that they have done the work ahead of time and then can be nimble when the chance arises.

When stocks get more expensive, they are reassessed against the 10% per annum long-term target. The team may trim or add to positions on market volatility, but turnover is generally low.

3.5% yield target on cost

Recognising that higher yields are often associated with riskier businesses, the yield threshold for a stock to be considered for inclusion within the income portfolio is now 3.5% (down from 4.5%). The team wants to hang onto good quality businesses, and so any income stock that re-rates so that its yield falls below the 3.5% level may be retained within the portfolio. Given the target of growing investors’ income in real terms, it is important that these stocks offer good dividend growth prospects. However, the team takes a portfolio approach, including a mix of higher-yielding lower growth stocks as well as lower-yielding but faster-growth companies.

Private Capital

Focused portfolio of private companies

This part of the portfolio is invested in a target portfolio of six to eight companies with the aim of generating a total return target of 14% a year and a 2.5% yield on cost. The strategic allocation to this area is 25%–35%. However, it is currently towards the lower end of that range following the sale of 7IM.

The 10-strong private capital team is led by Tom Leader. It is focused on origination, valuation and working to support value creation within investee companies.

The private capital allocation is composed of direct investments focused on high-quality, mainly-UK mid-market companies.

CLDN partners with management to drive improvements, leveraged used conservatively

CLDN will invest £50m–100m in these businesses for a controlling stake (there are some legacy minority positions within the portfolio that will be traded out over time). CLDN sees itself as partnering with these companies. Value is created by improving the underlying business rather than financial engineering.

Leverage is used conservatively, typically in a range of 2x–2.4x. That makes this part of the portfolio much less sensitive to interest rates and helps facilitate the payment of dividends. (For 7IM, a large part of the return came in the form of dividends – around £140m).

Good quality businesses with a path to improving profitability

Given the income requirement and CLDN’s conservative approach, target companies must be good-quality, EBITDA-positive (they are unlikely to buy a loss-making company), and have a clear path to increasing profitability. When assessing potential investments, maintenance capex is factored into their deliberations. CLDN tends to avoid capital-hungry businesses and would not seek out “buy-and-build” type deals. However, CLDN is happy to support sensible bolt-on acquisitions (Liberation is a good example of this – see page X).

CLDN is aligned with the underlying management teams

CLDN likes to back good management teams, but is happy to make changes where necessary and can tap into its network to help source talent. CLDN seeks to align with management by investing in the same instruments as them. In addition, as an evergreen fund, CLDN can be a genuine long-term backer of these businesses, and that helps build trust.

CLDN works with the management team, not looking to interfere with the day-to-day running of the company, but rather to provide strategic guidance and, when needed, capital for investment and acquisitions.

Sales

There is no fixed timeframe for realising these assets and CLDN will happily continue to hold them as long as it sees long-term growth potential. However, all of these investments are for sale at the right price.

As one example, Deep Sea Electronics – a business that CLDN bought in 2018 for equity of £117.2m and short-term debt of £50m that was subsequently repaid – was one that the team was happy to hold for the long term. However, Genarac Holdings – a US strategic buyer – was keen to acquire the company and CLDN sold its stake for net proceeds of £242.2m in 2021.

There is no proscribed upper limit for the size of a successful investment within the portfolio. However, the success of Seven Investment Management was such that CLDN was considering whether it would make sense to sell off a slice of its position to a co-investor. In the end, its stake was sold in 2023 for £255m, crystallising a return of 2.3x on cost. CLDN had acquired it for £74m in 2015 and topped this up with £54m of follow-on capital, although this was offset by £44m of distributions.

Private equity funds

Funds provide exposure to things that the team could not do on its own

The strategic allocation to this area is 25%–35% and the total return target is 12.5% per annum. The funds allocation gives interesting exposure to things that the team could not do on its own. This part of CLDN’s portfolio covers about 75 funds (including some funds of funds), managed by 44 managers, with 600–100 underlying companies.

The allocation is split currently between North America (59%) and Asia (41%). Globally, market activity has slowed over the last 18 months, although there was a pick-up in North America in Q2 of 2023. The team is expecting relatively depressed levels of activity to continue for a while yet. For example, the managers observe that in Asia, Chinese companies took advantage of earlier buoyant conditions to raise considerable funds close to the top of the market, and many of these are not looking for additional funding.

CLDN wants to see evidence that the underlying GP’s approach is working before making an investment with them. Usually, therefore, CLDN will not invest until the GP is launching its Fund III. However, sometimes CLDN would consider investing late into an earlier fund.

Valuations are conservative – there is no benefit to write them up ahead of realisation

There is no benefit to the GPs to writing up valuations (because fees are based on committed capital and crystallised capital gains) and so there is often a big jump in the value of position on realisation.

At end September 2023, CLDN had outstanding commitments of £427m that it expected to be drawn over three to four years. That is balanced against cash of £227m and CLDN’s £215m undrawn credit facility.

US

US lower mid-market buyouts, a hard to access part of the market for UK-based investors

The US exposure is to lower-mid-market buyouts, a part of the market that is hard to access for UK-based investors. Often, they are the only European LP investor in these funds. There is less competition for deals in this part of the market and typically this represents the first institutional money being invested in these companies. The GPs provide knowledge, resources, and capital. They may add some leverage. Exit is to mid-market private equity players.

Typically, CLDN is making primary investments into four or five new LPs each year and may – from time to time – participate in the secondary market. Two or three of these deals will be with GPs that they have backed before, and the balance will be with new GPs.

The team considered whether it made sense to get exposure through securitisations and co-investments, but decided that this did not make sense from a risk perspective in its chosen area of lower mid-market.

Asia

In Asia, CLDN holds funds giving exposure to venture (but not start-up) and growth companies in non-cyclical, new economy sectors. The team observes that, as the private equity market is less mature here, exit opportunities are provided mainly by IPOs and trade sales.

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ESG

CLDN is a responsible investor and does not seek to profit from things that are not good for the environment or for society. It does not operate a list of banned sectors or companies; rather, investments are considered individually and an assessment of ESG factors is built into all stages of the investment process. A responsible investment/responsible corporate working group chaired by the CEO oversees CLDN’s efforts in this area.

CLDN exercises its voting rights at shareholder meetings of portfolio companies. Every voting decision is considered by the team rather than being outsourced to a third party.

Within the private capital allocation, where CLDN is represented on the boards of these companies, CLDN monitors a range of KPIs and requires the companies to document progress against these. The team finds that this discipline adds value on exit.

Within the funds allocation, CLDN maps and monitors ESG aspects within the underlying companies.

The approach naturally excludes many polluting industries and consequently CLDN’s scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions are well below those of the MSCI World Index. Nevertheless, CLDN is seeking to reduce its net GHG emissions and those of the portfolio. It expects the businesses in which it invests to target net zero emissions by 2050.

Asset allocation

Figure 1:Split of portfolio by type as at 31 March 2024

Source: Caledonia Investments

Figure 2:Split of portfolio by geography as at 31 March 2024

Source: Caledonia Investments

CLDN’s asset allocation at end March 2024 reflects the relatively recent disposal of 7IM (see page X), which reduced the exposure to private capital. Other net assets include the freehold on the trust’s headquarters in Buckingham Gate.

Top 10 holdings

Within the public equities portfolio, Microsoft and Oracle give CLDN exposure to the AI theme that has been driving markets, and consequently they have been good performers recently. The initial investment in Oracle was made in 2014 and was one of the stocks that was topped up in the market panic of March 2020. The team was attracted by the growth opportunity and improvement in earnings quality that Oracle’s transition to a subscription-based, cloud model was bringing. Substantial share buybacks have helped enhance returns.

CLDN invested in Microsoft when it was out of favour and has ridden the recovery since. Looking at the rest of the top 10:

Cobepa

Cobepa (cobepa.com) is a Belgian family office that was established in 1957 and has a lot of similarities with CLDN. Cobepa manages around €4.7bn on behalf of a growing number of families, including initially some of those behind InBev. CLDN first invested by acquiring a stake from BNP Paribas around 20 years ago. CLDN director Will Wyatt sits on its board.

Cobepa makes €50m–€300m investments in European and US companies with established and proven business models. The portfolio is diversified across 20 companies.

The CLDN team says that Cobepa has provided about a 12% return pretty consistently, including a growing dividend. It has also been a source of investment ideas. CLDN can choose to co-invest alongside Cobepa if it finds a deal attractive. Similarly, if CLDN come across a deal that it wants to do but would ordinarily be too large for the trust, Cobepa could co-invest. For example, BioAgilytix was a Cobepa deal. CLDN invested £23m in the company in 2019 for an 8.8% stake and eventually sold it in 2021 for $183m.

AIR-serv Europe

AIR-serv (air-serv.co.uk) was CLDN’s most recent private capital investment. It is a UK-headquartered forecourt vending machine business with around 20,000 machines installed across its Air, Vac and Jet Wash ranges. CLDN put up £142.5m for a 99.7% stake, management invested £500,000, and bank debt facilities contributed £60m, to finance the acquisition. The deal carved out the business from CSC ServiceWorks, a US firm focused on laundry services, which retained the AIR-serv operations in the US.

The business was founded in 1948 and now has operations in the UK and Ireland, the Benelux, France, Germany, and Spain. CLDN felt that it was underinvested; nevertheless, CLDN says that the machines make a good ROI.

The forecourt machines are operated either on a rental or revenue share basis. A programme of shifting the machines to work with contactless rather than coins has made them easier to manage and monitor remotely. CLDN says that the business is trading well; it has been able to pay down some of the debt from cashflow, and the equity has been written up in value.

Stonehage Fleming

Stonehage Fleming (stonehagefleming.com) is a family office business serving high-net-worth clients, offering them wealth planning advice, accounting, tax advice, and other services.

The CLDN team says that Stonehage Fleming has good pricing power, sticky revenues and, to some extent, countercyclical revenues, in that times of crisis create more need to tap into Stonehage Fleming’s services.

The firm has expanded through M&A. Stonehage has its roots in South Africa; the management team bought the firm out of ABSA in 2005. 2015 saw the merger with Fleming Family & Partners, and CLDN took a 35% stake (now 33.9%) in 2019. The most recent deals were the acquisition of Maitland’s private client services division in 2022 (which added a presence in Monaco, Malta, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Mauritius), and 2023’s purchase of Stellenbosch-based investment management firm, Rootstock Investment Management.

HighVista Strategies

HighVista (highvistastrategies.com) is a Boston-based alternative asset manager with about $10bn of AUM and a 20-year track record. It acquired abrdn’s $4bn US private equity business and the 30-strong team managing that in July 2023. It just closed its $675m Fund X. HighVista’s private equity funds focus on the lower mid-market (small, privately held companies, typically with enterprise values less than $150m). It partners with sub-$500m specialist private equity sponsors, co-investing directly into founder-owned and founder-led businesses in the US, and opportunistically acquiring lower-middle-market secondary interests.

Liberation Group

Liberation (liberationgroup.com) is a Jersey-based business operating over 130 pubs across the Channel Islands and Southwestern UK, offering 400 rooms, with additional income from cigarettes and alcohol importation and distribution in the Channel Islands. The group owns two breweries (Liberation, brewed in the Channel Islands, and Butcombe Brewing Company, based in Bristol and with distribution and bottling facilities in Bridgwater, Somerset).

The pubs are a mix of managed and tenanted sites. The offering is food-led but pitched at a more affordable level than its closest rival.

Since CLDN backed the business in a £118m deal in 2016, it has expanded with acquisition of a portfolio of 21 pubs from Wadworth during lockdown and a merger with Cirrus Inns in 2022. CLDN now has an 82.4% stake in the business.

In 2019, CLDN brought in Jonathan Lawson (ex-Greene King) to run the business. The CLDN team says that there is a latent profit opportunity within the business, and that it benefits from good customer management.

Cooke Optics

Cooke Optics (cookeoptics.com) has a 120-year track record of producing high-quality lenses, various iterations of which accompanied the development of cinema, and it continues to innovate. In 2013, the company was honoured with its own Oscar for services to filmmaking.

The CLDN team says that Cooke’s heritage is an important part of the value of the business. Generations of filmmakers trained on Cooke lenses and the signature look that they produce help underpin demand. Third-party distributors rent Cooke products to production companies as part of a bigger package of production equipment. CLDN’s team says that this arrangement makes the use of Cooke’s products somewhat price-insensitive.

New product development is a key part of the story. For example, Cooke recently created a new business unit to develop software-enabled products for post-production, VFX, virtual production, animation, and gaming.

Disruptions to film and TV production associated with the pandemic and strikes did hold back the business in the short term.

CLDN is encouraged by the success of Cooke’s recently-introduced SP3 lens ‘prosumer’ range, which gives access to Cooke’s expertise but at a lower price point than its traditional merchandise.

Axiom Asia Funds

Axiom Asia Private Capital (axiomasia.com) is headquartered in Singapore and has branches in Taiwan and China. It invests across Asia including investments in Japan, Australia, and South Korea. Underlying holdings are in growth sectors such as TMT, retail, consumer, and healthcare.

Axiom Asia manages nine private equity funds of funds, with total commitments of over $7bn. Its funds are diversified across mid-market buyout, growth, and venture capital. Many of these underlying funds are hard to access.

Watsco

Watsco (watsco.com/) is a heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration distribution business. It is a $21.3bn market cap listed company operating a buy-and-build business strategy that has allowed it to become a market leader in a highly fragmented market. Watsco has also often collaborated with OEM Carrier Global when making acquisitions, investing in these through a number of joint ventures that Watsco controls.

Watsco aims to be the leading player in the geographies that it operates in, leveraging this to provide better customer service.

The CLDN team has a good relationship with Watsco management. For CLDN, part of the attraction is that it is still 30% owned by the Nahmad family who have led the company since 1973 and repositioned it towards distribution in 1988.

Recent investment activity

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Performance

As Figures X and X show, over the past five years CLDN has produced good returns relative to both the UK equity market and UK inflation. CLDN has more or less held its own relative to the global equity market, although in the very short term, it has lagged the rising market, likely reflecting the lag between equity market moves and the revaluation of private assets.

Figure 5:CLDN NAV total return performance relative to MSCI ACWI, MSCI UK and UK inflation (CPIH) over five years ended 31 March 2024

Source: Morningstar, Marten & Co

In NAV terms, CLDN has comfortably met its objective of beating the return on the UK market over 10 years, and over the medium-to-long term it is also ahead of its inflation plus 6% per annum target.

Results for the 12 months ended 31 March 2024

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Public companies – return X%

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Private capital – return X%

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Funds – return X%

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Dividend

CLDN has built up an impressive track record of growing its dividend every year for 56 consecutive years, making it a leading AIC dividend hero.

CLDN’s revenue earnings per share reflect the mix of investments in its portfolio. The board do not want the ‘tail to wag the dog’ here, and the portfolio is not managed to produce any target level of income. There are some years where revenues dip, as happened during the pandemic, and again in FY23. In these circumstances, the board is happy to dip into reserves to maintain its dividend growth objective.

There are also some financial years where CLDN finds itself with excess cash or there has been a significant disposal. In these circumstances, the board may opt to pay a one-off special dividend. This was the case in 2017 (when CLDN sold Park Holidays) and again in 2022 (when CLDN realised its stake in Deep Sea Electronics and BioAgilytix).

Figure 8:CLDN recent history of dividend and revenue earnings

Source: Caledonia Investments, Marten & Co

Growing shareholders’ dividend income in real terms is a key part of CLDN’s investment objective. Figure X looks at the trust’s dividend history over the past 20 years. Had the dividend merely kept pace with inflation over that period, the dividend for 2024 would have been 46p rather than Xp, X% less.

The public companies allocation contributes sufficient income to cover about half the dividend.

The income pool is biased to UK companies, reflecting the higher yields available in that market. However, the whole portfolio is generally biased to North American and UK stocks in any case.

Figure 9:CLDN dividends versus UK inflation (CPIH) over 20 years

Source: Caledonia Investments, ONS, Marten & Co

Premium/(discount)

Over the 12 months ended 31 March 2024, CLDN’s discount moved within a range of 39.3% to 27.9% and averaged 33.4%. At X May 2024, CLDN was trading on a discount of X%.

Figure 10:CLDN discount over the five years ended 31 March 2024

Source: Morningstar, Marten & Co

There is little logic that we can fathom to the widening of CLDN’s discount over the past couple of years. The discount may reflect the general widening of discounts across the investment companies sector. However, it seems at odds to the company’s ongoing buyback activity, with Xm shares bought back over 2024 year to date, and to the conservative approach used to value CLDN’s private investments.

Fees and costs

CLDN’s management expenses were £xm for the year ended 31 March 2024 (FY24) as compared to £29.9m for FY23.

Over the course of FY24, CLDN had X employees on average, versus 62 for FY23. Personnel expenses of £Xm (FY23 £20.2m) account for the largest portion of this. Of this, £Xm relates to wages, salaries, associated taxes, and pension provision, while £xm relates to share-based incentives.

CLDN has provided guarantees to the three pension schemes that provide pension benefits for its employees. Only one of these is still receiving contributions. All three schemes were in surplus at 31 March 2024.

Senior executives are entitled to receive options over the company’s shares that are exercisable subject to service and performance conditions. All performance shares have a 10-year life. At 31 March 2024 there were X shares that had been awarded but had not yet vested under this scheme.

The company also has a deferred bonus plan whereby senior employees compulsorily defer any part of their bonus in excess of 50% of their basic salary into shares. All deferred bonus awards have a four-year life. At 31 March 2024, there were X shares that were deferred under this plan.

CLDN’s ongoing charges ratio for FY24 was X (FY23 0.77%). Costs related to underlying funds are excluded from this figure.

Capital structure

CLDN had 54,398,443 ordinary shares in issue and with voting rights as at 26 April 2024.

In addition, there are 8m irredeemable deferred ordinary shares in issue, which are held by Sterling Industries, a wholly-owned group company. These do not have voting rights and do not get the same dividends as the ordinary shares. Instead, they get an annual payment of 1% of their nominal value of 0.05p per share; in other words, £4,000 in total.

Gearing

At 31 March 2024, CLDN had access to a £Xm revolving credit facility, which was undrawn. The facility is provided by X and matures on X. Interest on drawn balances is charged at X%.

At 31 March 2024, CLDN had net cash on its balance sheet of £Xm.

Major shareholders

The Cayzer Trust and associated individuals own about 49% of the ordinary shares between them. They are consulted on voting their shares at CLDN meetings and so form a concert party. However, they do not seek to dictate the board’s actions.

The Cayzer family’s office is co-located within the building.

Management team

As a large, self-managed trust, CLDN has an extensive team of around 20 investment specialists working on the portfolio. At its head is Mat Masters (CEO), who has been in the role since Will Wyatt retired in July 2022. As discussed below, Will stayed on as a non-executive director.

The rest of the executive team comprises Rob Memmott (CFO), Richard Webster (company secretary), Jamie Cayzer-Colvin (head of funds) and Tom Leader (head of private capital). There is more information about the team on CLDN’s website.

Board

CLDN has a 12-strong board composed of four executive and eight non-executive directors. Six of the directors are independent. Biographies of each of the directors are available on CLDN’s website.

David Stewart has been chair of the company since 2017.

The Hon. Charles Cayzer and Will Wyatt are both former members of the executive and now sit on the board as two of the three representatives of the Cayzer family (the third being Jamie Cayzer-Colvin). Charles is chairman of The Cayzer Trust Company. Will is a non-executive director of Cobehold (see page X).

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