History

Sir John Tomlinson Brunner, 1st Baronet, (8 February 1842 - 1 July 1919) was a British chemical industrialist and politician. In 1873 Brunner formed a partnership with Mond and together they founded Brunner Mond & Company.

The company was formed to make soda ash by the new ammonia soda process, for the cotton industry. It manufactured alkalis from the vast salt deposits in northwest England, and ammonia and fertilisers in the northeast of the country.

The partnership was converted into a limited company and the founders became managing directors.

Sir John Brunner became the Chairman and retained that position until April 1918, 14 months before his death. However by then his duties were being increasingly performed by his son.

Brunner Mond merged with three other British chemical companies to form Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), which grew to become one of the world's largest and most successful companies.

The family's interest in ICI was used in the following year to establish The Brunner Investment Trust which was managed by Kleinwort Benson, predecessor of Allianz Global Investors. The Brunner family remained active in the investment decisions and a family member is still on the Board today. Sir Felix Brunner became the Chairman of the Trust and retained this position until 1972.

Start of Brunner's track record of growing dividends by paying 0.48 pence per share dividend to its shareholders. Barnabus Brunner became the Chairman of the Trust and retained this position until 1998.

Brunner's investment policy includes overseas investments in the portfolio for the first time.

The Trust’s investments are divided equally between the UK and overseas. Brunner Investment Trust re-registered as a Public Limited Company.

John Trott became the Chairman of the Trust and retained this position until 2005.

Lucy Macdonald joined Allianz Global Investors as CIO for Global Equities and co-manager of Brunner.

Keith Percy elected as Chairman and retained his position until 2016.

Carolan Dobson elected as Chairman. Brunner's UK equities and overseas equities portfolios are merged to form one global equity portfolio.

Brunner celebrates its 90th birthday and its 45th consecutive year of increasing dividends. It is recognised as one of the AIC's 'Dividend Heroes'. Following a decision to invest a higher proportion of the Brunner portfolio in overseas equities, Brunner's benchmark changes to 70% FTSE World-ex UK and 30% FTSE All-Share Index.

June 2018: Brunner announces a refinancing exercise, in order to achieve a balance of finance sources and maturities and to lock into a long-term rate at pricing levels the Trust considers to be attractive. Following this exercise, Brunner’s weighted average interest on all structural borrowings and preference stock is 2.9%, compared with 7.7% previously.

Having worked as the deputy manager of Brunner since 2016, Matthew Tillett became lead manager in May 2020.

Brunner celebrates its 95th birthday and a landmark 50th consecutive year of increasing dividends. It continues to be recognised as one of the AIC's 'Dividend Heroes' with one of the longest-running records from that group.

Julian Bishop and Christian Schneider are named Co-lead Portfolio Managers following the 2023 AGM. Christian is CIO Global Growth and has been involved with managing the Brunner portfolio for many years. Julian Bishop joined Allianz Global Investors in November 2022 as a Senior Portfolio Manager. Julian has more than 25 years fund management experience. He joined AllianzGI from Tesco Pension Investment Ltd where he was an Equity Fund Manager managing a multi-billion pounds global equities portfolio.