I invested in individual stocks for about 20 years, by which...

I invested in individual stocks for about 20 years, by which time I'd figured out I was no better at picking the good ones than anybody else at doing so - yea, I was a slow learner. I then switched to, at first equity trusts, then LICs for the next 20 years and have now figured out that on average the guys managing these vehicles are no better than I was - yea, I'm still a slow learner.

Managers have good periods and bad. All the things goodie mentions may occur at some point, or something else that makes them just take their eye of the ball. In Forager's case, they had a good period five or six years ago (RAMs affect?) and a lousy 2019, end result being no value added. One could ask should a small organisation be running both a local and international fund or whether their CIO needed to appear regularly on Sky or in Livewire. Better, I think, to accept that reversion to mean covers it, and that a specific reason doesn't really matter.