I
Stewardship over speculation
We own businesses; we do not rent tickets. Our median holding period is eleven years. We buy as if the exchanges will close for a decade — because one day, they will.
Patience is our oldest asset.
Alderton & Co. is a private investment partnership, founded in Mayfair in 1892. Four generations of one family and twenty-four partners, compounding capital through every crisis since — for ninety-one families, four foundations and two institutions.
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No external shareholders · No products · No commissions
01 — The Firm
Mayfair, London W1K
We are a quiet firm, and intend to remain one. We take long positions in businesses we can understand, land we can walk, and people we can meet.
There are no external shareholders, no products and no commissions — only the partnership, and those who entrust their capital to it. What we own, we tend to keep.
Senior partnerH. M. Alderton
0£bn
Under stewardship
0
Years of continuous partnership
0
Partners · one family · four generations
0% p.a.
Annualised return since 1970, net of all fees
02 — Philosophy
Unchanged since 1892, revised often
Four convictions,
held for a century.
II
Concentration, with conviction
A portfolio of twenty-three positions, each known to the partner responsible down to the second-floor office. Diversification is protection against ignorance; we prefer knowledge.
III
Land, at last
One sixth of the partnership's capital rests in English freehold — farms, fen and parkland — bought to be kept. Land does not file for bankruptcy, and it does not resign.
IV
Discretion, structurally
We publish no league tables, court no headlines, and appear in none. Our clients are clients precisely because the world does not know it.
03 — Portfolio
Select a line to read more
Where the capital
is put to work.
Allocation
Representative holdings
Whitby & Sons — engineering, Sheffield · since 1994
Cardew Press — packaging, Bristol · since 2003
Lorne Marine — shipwrights, Leith · since 2011
Enquire to the team
Whitby & Sons — engineering, Sheffield · since 1994
Cardew Press — packaging, Bristol · since 2003
Lorne Marine — shipwrights, Leith · since 2011
Allocation
Representative holdings
Median position size — £164m
Median holding period — 11.2 years
Turnover, trailing decade — 4.1% p.a.
Enquire to the team
Median position size — £164m
Median holding period — 11.2 years
Turnover, trailing decade — 4.1% p.a.
Allocation
Representative holdings
41,000 acres of freehold across nine counties
Nothing sold since 1957
Tenanted farms — 63, all family-held
Enquire to the team
41,000 acres of freehold across nine counties
Nothing sold since 1957
Tenanted farms — 63, all family-held
Allocation
Representative holdings
Optics & photonics — two positions
Computational biology — one position
We expect to be wrong more often than not
Enquire to the team
Optics & photonics — two positions
Computational biology — one position
We expect to be wrong more often than not
The market rewards the impatient with experience, and the patient with wealth. We chose our clients' side of that trade a long time ago.Edmund Alderton · Senior Partner, 1958
04 — The Long View
Audited annually · Price Bailey LLP
The long view.
Value of £100 entrusted to the partnership in 1970, income reinvested, net of all fees and taxes. Hover the line to read any year.
Alderton composite, 1970–2024
£100 → £47,800 · 12.1% p.a.
Past performance is not a promise
05 — Insights
The partner letters, selected
Written slowly,
four times a year.
Reading time — 14 minutes · 4,200 words
On the compounding our clients forfeit in the three years after they leave us, and the three years before they arrive. An arithmetic argument, made reluctantly, for doing very little, very slowly, for a very long time.
Reading time — 9 minutes · 2,800 words
Why a quarter of our new capital now goes into English freehold. Fields yield nothing to the headline writer and everything to the granddaughter. A walking tour of nine counties, in eleven paragraphs.
Reading time — 11 minutes · 3,400 words
Three investments we lost entirely, and what each one purchased: a discipline, a friendship, and an exit clause. We publish our failures here because nowhere else will.
Reading time — 16 minutes · 4,900 words
Advising second and third generations is a different craft from advising their grandparents. On trust deeds, greenhouses, and the delicate business of saying no to one's own children.
06 — The Alderton Letter
One letter, four times a year. No marketing, ever.
The Letter is written by a partner, by hand, and posted — or sent, if you prefer — to some four thousand readers. It contains no funds, no offers and no opinions on the fortnight ahead.
Thank you — № 42 will reach you in July.