The Iran crisis has rattled markets, but for long-tenured managers who between them have navigated events like the dot-com bust, the global financial crisis and the pandemic, the instinct to sell is the mistake they have spent careers learning to avoid.
The Association of Investment Companies’ Annabel Brodie-Smith said: “The investment trust industry has a wealth of fund managers who can draw upon invaluable experience when navigating rocky markets and unpredictable geopolitical events.
“These managers have seen everything from oil crises and rampant inflation to armed conflicts and market volatility. This experience helps them see beyond the alarming daily events and helps them keep a calm head in uncertain times.”
Below, five of the longest-serving investment trust managers reveal what they have learned by investing through past crises and how they are responding to the current volatility.
Peter Spiller: “Every crisis is different”
With 44 years running Capital Gearing Trust, Peter Spiller is the longest-serving manager in the industry. His central lesson is that government response, not the crisis itself, determines the outcome.
Spiller pointed to the Barber Boom (when the UK overstimulated its economy in the early 1970s) as an example: the Treasury miscalculated spare capacity, told chancellor Anthony Barber that stimulus would not be inflationary and UK inflation peaked at 24.5%. Germany, taking a more conservative fiscal approach, peaked at 7.8%.
“If we apply this to the current situation, the commitment to stick to the fiscal rules probably inhibits making the first mistake but sadly it is happening at a time when equilibrium unemployment is rising due to the Employment Rights Act, so the inflationary effect will be more pronounced,” the manager said.
Gas prices, he added, now matter more than oil to the UK and European economies, hitting them with a sharper combination of higher inflation and lower growth. He also warned that “fears of additional taxation at the next Budget are likely to grow and depress investment”.
Over the Iran crisis, Spiller has cut gold from Capital Gearing’s portfolio. The yellow metal had risen more than 70% to its late-January peak but was behaving like a speculative asset, positively correlated with the Nasdaq rather than functioning as a safe haven.
“Gold was clearly not a secure place to hide,” he said. "We therefore sold it all.”
However, the trust’s broad position is largely unchanged, such as being short duration across the board, reflecting the manager’s longstanding concerns about market fragility and high valuations.
Matthew Oakeshott: “Buy when the bombs are falling”
Matthew Oakeshott is the manager with the second-longest tenure, having run the Value & Indexed Property Income Trust for 39 years. His lesson is “don't panic but buy when the bombs are falling”.
His City career began in 1976, with inflation at 25% and colleagues still scarred by the 1974 crash. He placed limit buy orders at rock-bottom prices before leaving on his honeymoon. He returned to find every order filled at the market bottom and his portfolio up 10%.
“At that time it was Denis Healey as chancellor, now it’s Rachel Reeves walking the tightrope between overseas lenders and the Labour party base,” he said. “2026 feels like another classic buying opportunity 50 years on. Nothing really changes.”
At the moment, the manager is “patiently reinvesting cash” from Value & Indexed Property Income Trust’s sales in 2025 into commercial non-office property yielding 8-10% on long index-linked leases.
“There is only one sure way to win for long-term investors in shares and property. Buy from the frightened and sell to the greedy,” he added.
James Henderson: “We don't see this situation as a time to sell”
Having run Lowland Investment Company and Law Debenture for 36 years, James Henderson has watched enough crises to recognise a pattern: a sharp sell-off followed by recovery.
The critical variable, in his experience, is the market’s valuation when the crisis strikes. The 2003 Iraq War, for example, produced a quick and painful decline, but the recovery was also fast because valuations were not stretched and a cushion was built in.
“If the market is stretched going into the crisis, the recovery is likely to be slower,” he added. “The attractive valuation of the UK market going into this situation is on our side.”
Henderson is not selling in this crisis but he maintains a watchlist and adds in small amounts on weaker days, building exposure methodically.
“We don't see this situation as a time to sell,” he said. "Rather, we approach it as an opportunity to buy where there is weakness.”
The closed-ended investment trust structure gives him the freedom to act on that view without the pressure of redemptions, allowing him to follow the principle: “It is time in the market, not timing the market.”
Georgina Brittain: “Stay calm and keep things in perspective”
Georgina Brittain, who has run JPMorgan UK Small Cap Growth & Income Trust for 28 years, said: “The most important lesson has been to stay calm and keep things in perspective.”
Sharp sell-offs are typically fear-driven rather than being based on fundamentals and reactive decisions compound the damage, she noted.
Her alternative is to keep focus on the underlying businesses because, if portfolio companies remain fundamentally sound, short-term prices are noise. Current conditions, in her view, present an opportunity rather than a threat.
“These moments can also create opportunities, allowing us to build positions in high-quality companies at attractive valuations,” Brittain said.
The manager’s guiding principle for stockpicking is to stay disciplined and keep focused on the long term. “Markets will always be noisy but our job is to identify high-quality businesses with strong fundamentals and the potential to deliver sustainable growth,” she explained.
Austin Forey: “It’s about focusing on companies, not economies”
Austin Forey’s experience of investing JPMorgan Emerging Markets Growth & Income for 31 years through geopolitical stress has not changed his approach. “Periods of uncertainty tend to reinforce, rather than change, our core principles of investing,” he explained.
For example, he argued that diversification is always important as different markets and companies can respond to geopolitical stress in very different ways.
Likewise, risk is always present in markets – in good times and bad. “As we do not have any special insight into predicting geopolitical outcomes, our focus must remain on understanding how these risks feed through to businesses and returns rather than trying to forecast events,” he said.
Forey argued that the best approach is to look for high-quality companies with high returns on capital, robust business models and capable management, then allow them to compound over the long term.
“Investing in emerging markets is not fundamentally different from investing anywhere else, the same principles apply. For us, it’s about focusing on companies, not economies,” he finished.