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UK’s largest medical charity cashes in on Twitter float

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By John Glenday, Reporter

December 19, 2013 | 1 min read

The Wellcome Trust, the UK’s largest medical charity, has generated a return of £2.6bn on a £14.5bn endowment – driven largely by a huge return on its pre-float investment in social networking firm Twitter.

In its annual report the charity revealed it had held a previously unreported stake of 1 per cent in the firm which generated a mark-up of £61m. A similar gain was accrued from a stake in Amplimmune, which was purchased by AstraZeneca in August for $500m.

Credit for the savvy investments is being given to the Trust’s chief investment officer, Danny Truell, who has concentrated on a riskier strategy of larger stakes in a smaller number of companies.

Truell has also moved to directly manage endowments with 40 per cent now controlled by the Wellcome Trust as opposed to third party fund managers.

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