Trim the angels’ share

Put your money into the wrong fund and you may come back to find your wealth has evaporated, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

If you age your whisky, beer or wine in wooden barrels, you generally have to be prepared to lose some of it along the way. Non-air-tight containers and evaporation mean that over time, barrels (and wine bottles with natural corks) end up with air between the liquid and the top of the container. The missing liquid is known as the 'angels' share' and the remaining space as the ullage (from the French ouillage).

There is a balance to be found here. Winemakers know that they need to share a little with the angels some oxygen is needed to break down tannins and so on but they don't want to overshare: too much and the wine will be ruined.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.