With around £50m already invested in Jump on behalf of some 20,000 children, Jump Child Trust Fund provider is the first choice for many parents who want to do the best for their kids.

Jump Child Trust Fund is based on Witan Investment Trust, a leading global investment fund that invests in hundreds of blue-chip stocks and shares, spread across the world’s markets to minimise risk. Over the long term, investments like these tend to outperform both bank and building society savings accounts. For an up-to-date of how well we are doing please click here, however please remember that past performance is not a guide to future performance. The value of an investment and the income from it can fall as well as rise as a result of currency and market fluctuations and you may not get back the amount originally invested.

Established in 1909, Witan is one of the UK’s largest investment trusts, successfully managing some £1.1 billion on behalf of more than 40,000 investors (as at 31.12.09), and listed as an investment company on the London Stock Exchange.

Witan adopted a multi-managed approach in 2004, by this we mean that we use a number of different investment managers from around the globe, all of who have long, successful track records in their particular markets.

And, because the Witan portfolio is invested across all the major global financial markets, we spread your risk by diversifying across geographical regions, industrial sectors and individual stocks. In this way, we achieve a balanced, low-risk equity investment opportunity for all Jump investors (who, we feel, already have enough concerns about the children in their lives: fingers in car doors, staggering down stone steps in Mum’s high heels and choking on fish fingers to name a few).

Our current ‘best of breed’ managers include:

SOUTHEASTERN ASSET MANAGEMENT

Founded in 1975 and based in Memphis, Tennessee, Southeastern manages over £20bn* for a range of institutional, high net worth and retail clients. When Southeastern makes an investment they take the view that they are purchasing that company in its entirety. They aim to avoid capital loss while targeting an annual average return of at least inflation plus 10%. In the US they manage the Longleaf mutual funds which reopened in 2008 to new investors, after being closed for several years, due to the large amount of opportunity in the market. Southeastern is 100% employee owned with all staff equity investment made exclusively in to the firm’s funds.

COMGEST

Wholly owned by its principals and staff, Comgest is completely independent. Founded in 1986, Comgest also has offices in Hong Kong, Dublin and Tokyo and manages over £8.9bn* solely in equity (£7.0bn* in Asia/Emerging markets). Comgest uses a fundamental bottom-up approach, investing in firms that show exceptional characteristics and are likely to appreciate steadily over the long term. No specific sectors or geographical zones are favoured. Comgest’s objective is to achieve above average returns at below-average levels of risk over the long term, reflecting the excellent visibility and strong profit growth of the companies in which it invests.

ORBIS INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT

Orbis employs over 100 staff based at offices in Bermuda, London, Sydney and Seoul and manages approximately £15bn*. Orbis adopts a bottom-up approach to selecting a portfolio of typically 30-50 stocks, offering best value, diversification and liquidity. Orbis offers a range of equity-based pooled investment vehicles, including a range of equity funds, three of which are AAA rated by Standard & Poor’s. Witan invests in Orbis’s Australian Equity Fund, which since the fund launch in May 2006, has continually outperformed its benchmark.

MFS INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT

MFS is a global investment firm managing £113.6bn* of equity and fixed-income assets for investors worldwide. Founded in 1924, MFS established one of the industry’s first in-house fundamental research departments in 1932. Today, MFS offers a broad range of investment styles that combine both fundamental and quantitative research and portfolio management. Their investment philosophy has remained consistent: to identify opportunities on behalf of clients through the application of global research and bottom-up security selection. MFS’ culture is investment driven, client centred, and collaborative. To underscore their values of collaboration and accountability, they structure ownership and compensation to reward long-term investment performance and teamwork. Up to 22% ownership of MFS is available to key MFS contributors. Their majority shareholder since 1982 has been Sun Life of Canada (U.S.) Financial Services Holdings, Inc.

BRANDES INVESTMENT PARTNERS

Brandes Investment Partners, L.P. (“Brandes”) is a leading US investment advisory firm, managing approximately £33.2bn* in equity and fixed income assets for institutional and private clients worldwide. Since the firm’s inception in 1974, Brandes has applied the value investing approach, pioneered by Benjamin Graham, to security selection. Among the first investment firms to bring a global perspective to value investing, they manage a variety of investment strategies. They believe that a security’s price and its intrinsic value detach from one another in the short term. The firm focuses on the fundamental characteristics of a company in order to develop an estimate of its intrinsic value. By choosing stocks that are selling at a discount to the firm’s estimates of their intrinsic value, the firm seeks to establish a margin of safety and an opportunity for competitive performance. This combination of rational fundamental analysis and the discipline to take advantage of market price irrationality enables the firm to target competitive long-term results.

HENDERSON GLOBAL INVESTORS

Founded in 1934, Henderson Global Investors (Henderson) is wholly-owned by Henderson Group plc, which is dual-listed on the London Stock Exchange and Australian Securities Exchange. Henderson Group is a constituent of the FTSE 250 and S&P/ASX 200 indices. Since 31st October 2008, the Group has been incorporated in Jersey and tax-resident in the Republic of Ireland. Henderson Group plc is a focused organisation comprising solely of Henderson, the asset management entity of Henderson Group plc. The Group’s strategic focus is the development of Henderson as a leading investment manager, based around their core fixed income, equity and property capabilities as well as their offering of alternative products, such as private equity and hedge funds. With its principal place of business in London, Henderson is one of Europe’s largest investment managers, with over £58.1bn* assets under management, employing over 900 people worldwide.

THOMAS WHITE INTERNATIONAL

Founded in 1992 by a Managing Director of Morgan Stanley Asset Management, Thomas White has £670m* under management. With professionals in Chicago and Bangalore, India, Thomas White invests in 50 markets around the world using a disciplined value-driven strategy. Its analysts are aided in their stock selection by proprietary fundamental appraisal techniques applied to each company within an industry and/or country. This body of valuation knowledge has been refined over decades. Their unique analytical approach allows them to limit overall portfolio volatility and downside risk while delivering excellent long-term investment returns.

ARTEMIS INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT

Established in 1997, Artemis Investment Management Ltd manages over £10.1bn* on behalf of a range of retail and institutional clients. Witan’s portfolio is a segregated mirror of Derek Stuart’s £1.9bn* UK Special Situations Strategy launched in 2001 – a contrarian fund that aims to outperform the FTSE All-Share Index by 3% per annum. This approach seeks to exploit market inefficiencies, with an absolute return mindset, in order to generate maximum returns. It is a stock-picking strategy that aims to achieve long-term capital growth by focusing on stocks that are out of favour and have turnaround potential.

MARATHON ASSET MANAGEMENT

Marathon Asset Management was founded in 1986 and is totally independent, managing over £25bn* of institutional client assets. At the heart of Marathon’s investment philosophy is the ‘capital cycle’ approach to investment. This is based on the idea that the prospect of high returns will attract excessive capital (and hence competition), and vice versa. In addition, the assessment of management and how they respond to incentives and the forces of the capital cycle is critical to the investment outcome. The investment philosophy is intrinsically contrarian. Given the long-term nature of the capital cycle, Marathon’s investment ideas generally require patience and, by industry standards, long stock holding periods.

VARENNE CAPITAL PARTNERS

Varenne Capital Partners invests internationally in significantly undervalued equity and other listed securities. Varenne was established in 2003, managing some £51m* and is a Paris based boutique with four founding partners. The managers at Varenne focus on companies with good to excellent economic characteristics, i.e. a measurable, sustainable competitive advantage delivering longterm above-average returns on capital employed, that trade at discount of at least 45% to their Intrinsic Value Estimates.

*Source Witan. Figures as at 31.12.09