Meanwhile Mr Train’s UK Equity fund rose by 9pc, compared with a 13pc rise in the FTSE 100.
The bumper payout follows a difficult year for the company, which recorded a 17pc slump in operating profit to £66.7m. It blamed the fall on a period of sustained net outflows from the fund, which it said was primarily in response to “recent relative investment under-performance over the last three years”.
It is in stark contrast to the lauded manager’s impressive longer-term performance, which helped him rise to prominence alongside other well-known stock pickers including Terry Smith.
Mr Train has built a reputation in the City for his “quality” investment strategy, backing only a small number of companies with unique brands and loyal followings, such as Diageo, PepsiCo and Nintendo, holding them over very long terms.
It is a similar investment approach championed by the eminent American investor Warren Buffet. However, Mr Train has largely shunned the American technology giants that have driven stock market returns for much of the past decade.
James Bullock, who co-manages Lindsell Train Global Equity with Mr Train and Mr Lindsell, wrote this month that the fund’s performance was “again disappointing” in August. Shares in Diageo, the drinks manufacturer which accounts for around 8pc of the fund’s total portfolio, have dropped by 14pc in the year to date.
Robin Powell, of the Evidence-Based Investor blog, said such large dividend payouts showed there was “no sector quite like active fund management when it comes to rewarding failure.”
He said: “Nick Train may have outperformed for reasonable periods in the past but he has consistently lagged the market in recent years.
“His recent performance over the past 12 months has been especially poor. For a fund manager who can’t beat a tracker to be paid millions of pounds a year is frankly obscene, and yet it happens all the time.
“The interests of fund managers and the investors they’re supposed to serve are completely misaligned.”
