Caledonia Investments, a ￡3bn global equity fund, has issued a “manifesto” that has got Questor believing shares in its long-standing tip will finally deliver on their full potential.

At a time when political parties are battling to see which will govern the country for the next five years, Caledonia has declared in a short video that its goal is to be a patient, long-term custodian of people’s wealth.

The company wants to appeal to generations of families other than the Cazyer shipping dynasty which established the investment trust in 1960 with the proceeds from a trading business that dated back to Liverpool in the 1870s.

With the backing of the Cayzers, who own 49pc of the shares and have three seats on its 12-strong board, Caledonia says it does not suffer from the short-termism that has so plagued British finance and politics.

Its new motto, “time well invested”, reflects its ambition to take the time to find the best investments, buy them at the right time and hold them for as long as it takes for their returns to compound for shareholders.

It currently has ￡239m in cash having sold wealth platform Seven Investment Management for ￡256m last year, more than trebling its return over eight years.

While waiting for the next big deal, Caledonia scooped a small stake in Diageo earlier last November when shares in the Guinness drinks group fell on a profits warning caused by slowing sales in Latin America.

Caledonia’s unhurried approach is exemplified by its semi-annual dividends.

Annual results last week showed these rose by 4.5pc in the 12 months to 31 March, the 57th consecutive year the shareholder payout has increased.

The shares yield 2.1pc, less than the 3.6pc from the UK stock market which shows that Caledonia is primarily a vessel of capital growth rather than income.

The trust takes a “multi-equity” rather than the “multi-asset” approach of rival RIT Capital Partners, the Rothschild-backed trust that invests in debt and other specialist assets as well as shares, which we tipped as good value in April.

By contrast, Caledonia takes a broad approach to equities.

It invests its assets in three buckets.

First, the shares of public companies such as US software giants Microsoft and Oracle.

Second, a group of eight private companies including Cobepa, another family-backed fund in Belgium, and AIR-serv Europe, a Wigan-based provider of car wash and cleaning machines in which it invested ￡143m last year

And third, 74 private equity funds investing in unlisted businesses in North America and Asia.

In the 2023 to 2024 financial year, the public companies segment returned 12pc, the private capital portion did slightly better at 12.3pc and the private equity funds – historically the strongest part of the portfolio – trailed on 2.2pc after a dearth of opportunities to sell maturing investments.