The Wellcome Trust has reported a growth of £3.5bn on its investment portfolio – thanks in part to a bet against the pound sterling ahead of the EU referendum.

This represents an 18.8 per cent return for its investments and brings the charity’s total funds to a value of more than £20bn for the year ending 30 September 2016, according to its latest set of accounts.

A statement in the Trust’s 2016 annual report said a decision was made to scrap a rule requiring the charity to hold at least a quarter of its assets in sterling: “Structually, we have diversified our portfolio globally over the past decade to reduce significantly any home country bias,” the charity’s trustee report states.

“Tactically, we viewed the risk to sterling from the referendum to be asymmetric and reduced our sterling exposure to an all-time low ahead of the vote.

“Sterling’s subsequent depreciation and, generally steady performance in underlying assets enabled us to record a sterling return in the year of 19 per cent or £3.5bn increasing the underlying net value of our endowment to £20.9bn.”

According to chair Eliza Mannningham-Buller, the latest investment returns have allowed the charity to continue to invest significantly more in medical research.

"I am pleased to report that, once again, our investments have done well, building on past investment decisions, and dexpite a tubulent market. Our charitable expenditure over 50 per cent more a year than it was five years ago in 2011 and more than double that of a decade ago." 

Senior executive pay

Total spend on staff salaries within the internal investment team stood at £6.7m, including just over £3m on one member.

A further two members earned more than £1.7m, while four earned more than £500,000.

The trust’s investment team is headed by chief investment officer Danny Truell. According to the trust, the decision to bring its investment team inhouse has saved it “hundreds of millions of pounds” in fees that would otherwise have been paid to external investment managers.

In a statement earlier this week, Truell said the decision to "diversify assets and geographical exposure has borne fruit".

"Although future investment returns are unlikely to match recent experience, we remain confident that the portfolio should generate sufficient cash flows to insulate the trust from potentially more difficult conditions."