The board of the Miton MicroCap Investment Trust has decided to delay its offer to investors to allow them to exit the trust amid fears of Brexit volatility.
Typically, the redemption offer to shareholders happens at the end of April, but the board has shunted this date back to June 28.
The board said this was because it expects heightened volatility in stock markets in the first half of 2019.
Shareholders in the £88m trust are permitted, every year, to sell their shares back to the trust. In 2018, about 10 per cent of shareholders took this option.
In the half year results statement for the trust released to the stock exchange this morning (December 14) the board stated: "The board does not believe that keeping to the existing timetable, when markets may well be in a period of turmoil, is in the interest of shareholders taken as a whole.
"The board retains the discretion to further amend this timetable given the ongoing uncertainty as to the eventual Brexit timetable."
It was a tough year in performance terms for the trust, which is managed by Gervais Williams and Martin Turner.
The trust lost 12 per cent compared with the FTSE Small Cap Index which fell 9 per cent, and it currently trades at a discount to net assets of 3 per cent.
The fund managers said the performance of one stock, Yu Group Plc, was behind much of the underperformance.
david.thorpe@ft.com
