Seems to be asking me for a weird permission in order to be able to trade it:
To be approved to trade United States (Penny Stocks) Stocks, your Investment Objectives must include one of the following: Profits from Active Trading and Speculation.
I hadnât realized about this, thanks for bringing this up.
Totally agree, the IBKR cost is ok. The reason why I was thinking of buying Fundsmith elsewhere was to diversify where I keep my assets. Iâm not comfortable keeping all my eggs in one nest so I started looking for other options and I thought Fundsmith could make sense. No decision made, still thinking about it 
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I went for the real thing and opened an account with them, I must be honest and say itâs quite of an adventure in terms of paper work. If I remember correctly there is something like 6-8 pages to fill out and send by post to UK (they do not accept emails or such for opening an account from abroad). Then I transfer on a monthly basis a small amount ~900 GBP using Revolut so that I do not pay any FX fees but again this process involves some manual work as I first need to call them to let them know that I would like to buy some of their T Class fund shares (btw I buy the accumulating version). They then give me a transaction number which I need to use as reference when sending them the money. Because UK is not in the EU anymore I still pay something like 3 CHF in bank fees I believe. Then you might also want to account for the call to a UK phone number for a few minutes. People who have a local bank account in the UK do not need to go through this hassle and can use direct debit but I already inquired and you need to be a citizen of the UK in order to open a local bank account.
I wish the whole process could be made easier and more automated for abroad foreigners but else I am very happy with the fund itself as it performed well and will continue to invest every month if possible. I am curious to see how many years can this one sustain year after year positive numbers.
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Thanks @mabi for taking the time to share all the details!
I canât believe that in 2022 they still want the documents by snail mail⊠
Do you have access to your account online to see number of shares, performance, etc.?
Yes, then I always thought Switzerland was behind with their fax at the Bundesamt in Bern 
Exactly, thatâs a small bonus and in fact they re-did their portal recently. Itâs easy to use and covers the basic features such as performance, documents, transactions, etc but nothing too fancy either. I donât really use it much except to download documents and a CSV export of my transactions from time to time.
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You can do investments online and pay by debit card.
No more difficult than ordering a pizza or paying for your Netflix subscription, really.
(Provided that youâve already opened up the account and registered user credentials)
Oh thatâs fantastic, last time I asked them over the phone they said that was not possible for foreign bank accounts. Which debit card do you use and from which bank?
Well, you (supposedly) do have a UK account that can direct debits. Revolut allows you to do this. The only reason I can think of why that may not work is Fundsmith refusing to accept it, due to Revolut being - technically still - a non-bank payment account? Have you tried?
TransferWise - you must have read that already 
Though I can now report to have made a couple subsequent investments through the same card. All in all for a five-digit sum - everything without a hitch (whereas some other banks, I suspect they wouldâve blocked the card and called me. Even though it should not be too risky a transaction).
I suppose that your Revolut card is going to work just as well. At least if itâs a non-Prepaid debit card (read carefully!). Not sure about the prepaid cards. debit card. Iâve heard that Revolut has not only issued prepaid but also debit cards lately.
Right, I start to understand now. I did not realize until you mention now that I could also have a GBP account with Revolut. Just checked now and indeed I can click Add account and chose GBP. So the plan would be to transfer CHF to my Revolut CHF account then exchange it with Revolut to GBP adding it to my GBP account and then setting up direct debit at Fundsmith. I guess I will give it a try as I donât need to call them anymore if that works. Just need to remember to provision my GBP account on Revolut from time to time. I assume here that adding a GBP account to Revolut is free hopefully. Iâll post here my success (or failure) doing that as soon as I get a moment.
I did not go for the TransferWise way as I do not want an additional bank/card/app/etcâŠ
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Interesting update on Fundsmith with this article on Bloomberg.
Extract:
For 2022, Smith predicts that we may have âall the ingredients for inflation to take hold.â However, the companies in his fund â such as LâOreal SA â will be better able to weather inflation because of their higher gross margins, he said.
The top five contributors to the Fundsmith Equity fund in 2021 were Microsoft Corp., Intuit Inc., Novo Nordisk A/S, Estée Lauder Cos Inc. and IDEXX Laboratories Inc. The bottom five were PayPal Holdings Inc., Amadeus IT Group SA, Kone AG, Unilever Plc and Brown-Forman Corp.
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For those interested in more detail, here is the letter sent to all shareholders this week:
Enjoy 
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Looking forward to watch the annual shareholders meeting video 
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Why just watch the video - when you can attend in person? 
I also thought about joining the shareholderâs meeting. Did anyone receive information about it? I hold my shares in IBKR so may not get the communication
Youâre totally right, if I would be in London I would totally join. I am sure they have a nice apero afterwards 
Off topic but @mabiâs comment made me grin: Tip for students: for the price of one share of any big swiss company+custody fees+some transportation cost, you get to have a buffet with enough leftovers for a few additional meals at their GA, once a year. You can then sell the share after graduation. 
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Since the topic was raised in another thread: here are the performance tables vs. benchmark for Fundsmith and SSON in GBP from the respective factsheets, as well as my calculation of annualised return since inception in CHF (FX rates from OANDA). Annualised return is ~2 to 2.5 % per year lower in CHF
FUNDSMITH IN GBP
Converted to CHF:
SMITHSON IN GBP
Converted to CHF
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I got sent this article on alternatives to Fundsmith that might be helpful.
My main issue is that none of the funds describe their strategy anywhere near as clearly as Fundsmith. It is difficult to tell if their out performance is just due to luck
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Guardcap Global Equity could be a similar vehicle to Fundsmith, similar strategy and porfolio construction
We believe that:
- Long-term sustained growth drives returns
- Quality protects against downside
- Valuation matters
Our investment strategies exploit a pervasive, ongoing anomaly in the way equity markets work: that markets focus primarily on the short-term future. They sometimes do not attribute sufficient value to the longer-term future earnings and cash flows of sustainably growing companies. Our investment strategies emphasise long-term thinking, long-term forecasting and long holding periods in order to exploit this.
This philosophy is applied through a fundamental, company selection-based process designed to create concentrated portfolios of companies, each having significantly better quality and growth characteristics than the market average, and each being undervalued in relation to its long-term future earnings and cash flows at the time of purchase.
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