Press release

Standard & Poor's reaffirms Wellcome Trust's AAA credit rating

The Wellcome Trust announced today that its AAA (stable) credit rating has been reaffirmed by Standard & Poor’s. The Trust continues to be rated Aaa (stable) by Moody’s Investors Service (Moody’s). These ratings are the highest available from both agencies and are reflective of the Wellcome Trust investment portfolio’s high levels of liquidity, low levels of leverage and its continued outperformance against financial markets.

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5-minute read

In 2006, the Wellcome Trust became the first UK charity to be awarded the AAA and Aaa ratings from Standard & Poor's and Moody's, respectively, and has subsequently issued £825 million of long-dated sterling-denominated debt.

The Wellcome Trust has more than 25 years' experience of owning a highly diversified financial investment portfolio. The investment base was valued at £14.5 billion at 30 September 2012. Since the portfolio's inception in 1985, it has delivered a 3133 per cent return.

From 1 October 1985 (when it took on its modern form) to the end of September 2012, the Trust had spent more than £10 billion. It now spends around £650 million each year to achieve extraordinary improvements in human and animal health and expects to spend £3.5 billion over the next five years.

Danny Truell, Chief Investment Officer at the Wellcome Trust, said: "The continued strong support by both Standard & Poor's and Moody's for our stable AAA/Aaa credit rating is most encouraging. Our investment return of 145 per cent over the past decade* has enabled us to increase our charitable expenditure significantly at a time when other sources of research funding have come under pressure.

"We invest in public equities and illiquid investments such as venture capital, private equity, residential property and hedge funds; as the agencies report, much of our investment risk is mitigated through diversification and a long-term investment horizon.

"As Professor John Kay’s excellent report recently confirmed, long-term investment must be encouraged: in particular, we encourage the management of the 80 or so public and private companies in which we have long-term direct holdings to adopt commensurate long-term views in planning their business strategies."

*Figure to September 2012.

About the Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. The Trust's breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests.

The Wellcome Trust was established in 1936 in the will of Sir Henry Wellcome, a pharmaceutical pioneer, progressive industrialist, philanthropist and archaeologist. The Trustees began work in 1937 with £73 048 in the deposit account.

Between 1936 and 1986, the Wellcome Trust was the sole owner of the Wellcome Foundation, Henry Wellcome's drug company. In 1986, however, the Trust began floating shares in the Wellcome Foundation and used the proceeds to diversify its assets. This has helped the Trust grow to become one of the world's largest charitable foundations, with assets of £14.5 billion (September 2012).

The Trust made its first awards in 1938 to Otto Loewi, who had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1936 for his discovery of acetylcholine and its physiological actions, and to Henry Foy and Athena Kondi for their work tackling malaria at the Wellcome Trust Research Laboratories in Thessaloniki, Greece. However, it was not until the mid-1980s that its spending became significant, thanks to its share floatation.

From 1 October 1985 until the end of September 2012, the Trust spent £10.1 billion. It now spends around £650 million each year to achieve extraordinary improvements in human and animal health and expects to spend £3.5 billion over the next five years.

Examples of the Wellcome Trust’s notable achievements include:

  • The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute led the UK arm of the Human Genome Project - to decipher the 'book of life' - and ensured all data from the project were made public.
  • Wellcome Trust researchers in Thailand and Vietnam led the work on artemisinin derivatives that enabled the introduction of artemisinin combination therapy, now the frontline treatment recommended by the World Health Organization for uncomplicated malaria. Their work also led the way for artesunate to be recommended by the WHO as first-line treatment in the management of severe falciparum malaria in African children, who are the most affected victims of this parasite in the world, as well as for severe malaria in all patients in low transmission areas.
  • Key discoveries from the Cancer Genome Project have led to breakthroughs in how cancers such as malignant melanomas are treated.
  • Researchers at the University of Oxford pioneered the use of a 'talking therapy' for bulimia nervosa, a severe eating disorder. This was the first psychological intervention to be recognised by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) as the leading treatment for a clinical condition and recommended for use in the NHS.
  • Wellcome Trust funding enabled the research that developed the techniques leading to the first ever successful transplant of a larynx, trachea and thyroid in 2010, enabling a Californian woman to speak for the first time in 11 years.
  • Wellcome Collection, the free visitor destination for the incurably curious, opened in London in 2007, exploring the connections between medicine, life and art in the past, present and future. It welcomes more than 400 000 visitors a year to its critically acclaimed exhibitions and collections, lively public events, conference centre and the world-renowned Wellcome Library. Its overwhelming success has led to a major planned development project to transform its spaces.