$104,534,983 invested for the future

Remarkably, the invested assets of HMSTrust’s corpus have grown from the initial benefaction of $550,000 in 1951 to more than $104.5m. This is a commendable achievement. If the $550,000 had simply matched the growth of the All Ordinaries Index over this period the corpus would be worth $31.2m today, and if it had only matched inflation it would be worth as little as $9.7m. At the same time these investments have also generated income to cover HMSTrust’s expenses and almost $110m in approved grants.

This exceptional investment performance did not happen by chance. First, Helen wisely instructed her trustees to re-invest two thirds of the income generated over the first 21 years. One of the features of compounding is the substantial benefit gained from strong growth early in the life of a fund. Secondly, the Trustees made a decision to invest primarily in Australian equities which have generated good capital growth over the last 64 years. Finally, but very importantly, HMSTrust has invested astutely in the better performing companies.