F&C Investment Trust seeks to provide regular dividend income and long-term capital growth through exposure to global equities, emerging markets, private equity, and AI-related themes.
Over the past decade, diversification has slipped down the priority list for many investors, even though it remains central to building a portfolio.
That may be where F&C Investment Trust earns its place. Its history stretches back to 1868, making it the world's longest-running collective investment scheme. F&C aims to give investors a dependable base for long-term capital growth, alongside rising dividend income.
The aim is to find investments and assets that bring distinct strengths to the portfolio rather than simply repeating the same exposure. Led by Paul Niven, F&C's management team has assembled holdings tied to major AI themes and the technology's potential growth, while spreading risk across the portfolio.
Driver of growth
AI helped lift earnings and equity-market returns in 2026. Risks remain, but Paul Niven expects that positive momentum to carry into 2027. F&C has exposure to the theme through holdings across the portfolio, including companies in the US and emerging markets.
AI also shows how a portfolio can look spread across regions yet remain tied to one investment theme. Asian chipmakers, US technology firms, and European suppliers of semiconductor equipment may operate thousands of miles apart, but all can rely on the same cycle of AI capital spending by US hyperscalers.
Investors have poured into AI leaders, the companies that supply them, and nearby technologies in recent years. That rush has also left developed-market equity portfolios heavily tilted toward the US. On April 30, 2026, US companies represented 72% of the MSCI World Index by market capitalisation, meaning most investors had substantial exposure to the region and to the AI themes that pushed shares in Nvidia and Microsoft higher over the previous 12 months.
Many investors may not see how concentrated their holdings have become. The MSCI World Index now leans heavily toward the US, while the US portion is concentrated in a small area: information technology makes up 37% of the MSCI USA Index, after gaining nearly 27 percentage points of index weight since 1974.
Diversification
F&C manages portfolios with a broader mix in mind. Niven is not trying to steer clear of successful themes such as AI; instead, he combines exposure to them with investments across different regions and styles, including opportunities in private markets. The portfolio contains more than 400 names. At the end of September, most of its capital was invested in US-domiciled holdings, including major AI positions such as Nvidia and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
Niven puts it plainly: a portfolio can hold many investments without spreading its risks very far. Strong growth opportunities should remain, but the portfolio also needs several distinct paths to a positive result.
F&C offers a straightforward way to bring global diversification into a portfolio. Its core holdings consist of established companies from around the world, while the fund also gives investors exposure to emerging-market growth.
The trust puts 10% of its assets into private equity - an area individual investors often struggle to enter alone.
Dividend Hero
F&Cs portfolio combines regional and global listed-equity strategies with value and growth investments, emerging markets, and private equity. The aim is to capture growth across several areas without relying too heavily on one market, investment style, or theme, giving returns a wider range of potential drivers.
The portfolio approach supports F&C's long record of paying reliable dividends. F&C is an Association of Investment Companies (AIC) dividend hero, having raised its dividend every year for 55 consecutive years.
To learn more, visit fandc.com
Dividends may not continue to rise.
Disclaimer
Capital at risk.
Private equity investments give exposure to companies that are not publicly listed. They may be harder to sell, more difficult to value and riskier than investments traded publicly.
Issued by Columbia Threadneedle Management Limited, registered in England and Wales under No. 517895. The company is authorised and regulated in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority. Approved as at October 2026.
Whether you can invest in an ISA, and how your investments are taxed, depends on your personal circumstances. Tax rules may change. Any reference to particular shares or bonds is not a recommendation to buy or sell them.
Sources:
MSCI, Scenario Analysis: The AI Supply Chain Under Stress, 5 August 2026.
MSCI, Another view of concentration in developed-market equities, 16 September 2026.
MSCI, The changing shape of US. equities, 23 September 2026.
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