The Polar Capital Technology Trust has reported a 30.7 per cent increase in its total net assets for the 12 months to April 30 2015 to reach £793m.
In addition the trust, which is managed by Ben Rogoff, recorded a 33.9 per cent increase in its share price and a 30.7 per cent increase in its net asset value (NAV) to 599.25p a share as it benefited from the strength of the dollar versus sterling and a recovery in US technology stocks.
Michael Moule, chairman of the investment trust’s board, stated in the preliminary: “The scale of the increase was partially attributable to a recovery from the final six week collapse in US technology shares which depressed our 2014 year end, and also a circa 10 per cent increase in the dollar versus sterling.”
In spite of the strong performance, however, Mr Moule noted that no performance fee would be payable this year “as the manager needs to catch up on the underperformance since the previous fee was paid in 2011”.
Mr Rogoff attributed the strong performance for the 12 months to a number of areas including positive contributions from next generation growth stocks in the US such as Splunk and Tableau, as well as “off-benchmark” internet positions including Amazon and LinkedIn.
But he added: “Outside of the US we managed to add value in all regions with a particularly striking performance in Japan, where we were assisted by a strong market and our yen borrowings helped to soften the impact of currency weakness.
“Relative performance was also positively impacted by underweight positions in a number of large index constituents that delivered disappointing returns during the year, including Hewlett Packard, Samsung Electronics and Qualcomm while our zero exposure to IBM proved the most significant stock level contributor to relative performance as the stock fell 4 per cent during a very strong year.”
However he acknowledged an underweight position in Apple and Microsoft did generate some relative underperformance as did the decision to retain some liquidity in the trust.
