Artemis Income reaches 25-year milestone

Artemis Investment Management’s flagship UK equity income fund, Artemis Income, celebrates its 25th anniversary on 6 June 2025.

The fund, which had £5.1bn under management as at 31 May, aims to provide investors with a steady and growing income along with capital growth, over five years.

It was initially managed by Derek Stuart, one of Artemis’ founding partners, who passed the baton to Adrian Frost in 2002. He has taken the fund from strength to strength, assisted by co-managers Nick Shenton and Andy Marsh, and supported by UK Equities Analyst Jamie Lindsay and Investment Director Josh Passmore.

Greg Jones, Head of Distribution at Artemis, commented: “If there ever was a poster child for active management, this fund is it. Its strong track record illustrates the power of compounding returns and how a disciplined, robust and repeatable investment process can provide the key to long-term outperformance.

“Today, the UK income team manages one of the best performing UK equity funds, a true testament to their skill and focus on delivering for our clients.”

Artemis Income sits within the top quartile of its sector over one, three, five and 10 years to 31 May 2025 and since launch, according to Lipper. It has outperformed its benchmark in 97% of rolling five-year periods since launch to 30 April 2025.

Discrete calendar-year performance 

The fund has delivered total returns of 778.8% from inception on 6 June 2000 until 31 May 2025, net of fees, according to Factset/Lipper. The FTSE All-Share has returned 263.7% over the same time period, while the IA UK Equity Income sector is up 307.7%.

Investment manager Nick Shenton said: “Our aim is to steadily grow wealth for savers over a long period of time, in a way that enables them to sleep at night. The fund has created a lot of value over two and a half decades and our investment process has been proven to work in a variety of different market environments, which we believe is a rare feat.”

Andy Marsh, who also co-manages the Artemis Income fund, said: “Our mantra is cashflow first, dividends second. We’re looking for companies with mispriced long-term cashflows that are creating durable value for all stakeholders. We don’t think labels such as growth or value make much sense and instead we look at what a company is fundamentally doing, the strength and durability of its cashflow, and how it compares with its peers.”

Investment Manager Adrian Frost commented: “Much has changed over the past quarter century, with one of the biggest transformations being how much more short-term the market has become. In our experience, most market participants are only interested in the past 12 months and the year ahead, whereas we want to talk to company management teams about their vision three to five years from now. We are finding a lot of opportunities by putting the short-term noise into perspective and looking for long-term value.”

Shenton added: “A theme running through the fund, which illustrates the dissonance between short- and long-term thinking, is the impact of technology. We are still in the foothills of the artificial intelligence revolution and have found several stocks that the broader market deems to be ‘AI losers’ but where we think technology will create huge opportunities over the next five years or more.

“We would argue that the UK is home to many world-leading businesses, including some of the best companies in the fields of data, technology and innovation.”