The Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust has delivered strong performance in the six months to September 30, according to its half-yearly report, including a 9 per cent increase in its net asset value (NAV) per share and a 12.1 per cent increase in its share price.
Figures from the trust, which is managed by Baillie Gifford’s James Anderson and Tom Slater, also showed the longer term performance is equally steady with a total return for the NAV of 117 per cent for the five years to September 30 2014 and 155 per cent for the share price.
In the six month period total assets for the trust reached £3.28bn, while net assets reached approximately £2.7bn, which according to the company means “Scottish Mortgage became the largest conventional investment trust in the sector, both by market capitalisation and total assets”.
The trust, which sits in the AIC Global sector and which won the Investment Adviser 100 Club 2014 global equity category last month, has also been working to reduce the premium on its shares by issuing shares from its treasury to meet demand.
Elsewhere the report noted that earnings per share for the trust had fallen by 12 per cent compared with the same period last year, which it partially attributed to lower revenues from one of its holdings, KGHM, although it the effects of this had been partially offset by the recovery of French withholding tax. But it warned: “We expect this trend of lower earnings to continue for the year as a whole”.
Meanwhile the trust confirmed its approach to its dividend, announced earlier in the year, that while the intention is to continue to growth the dividend, it will not necessarily be ahead of inflation as the primary focus will be on capital growth.
In terms of the portfolio the report noted that while the level of unquoted investments in the trust had fallen following the public listing of Chinese e-commerce business Alibaba, “investors should continue to expect such investments to form an important, if relatively small portion of the portfolio”.
