The £670million Scottish Investment Trust made a net asset value total return of 1 per cent and a share price total of return of 1.4 per cent in its full year to October 31.
The £670million Scottish Investment Trust made a net asset value total return of 1 per cent and a share price total of return of 1.4 per cent in its full year to October 31.
The global trust does not have a formal benchmark but noted that while the FTSE All-Share total return was 1 per cent, the All-World Index return was 8.8 per cent.
The board recommends a final dividend of 7.2p per share, up from 6.8p, which would mean a 3.4per cent increase to 12p for the year.
Chairman Douglas Macdougall, while not commenting on the trust??s performance, said it had started the year at a net cash position of 1 per cent, but had gradually deployed gearing to finish the year at 4 per cent, with benefit to the income account.
He added: ??The company has deployed a proportion of the long-term borrowings into higher-yielding equities and retains more than £60million in cash which could be utilised should attractive opportunities arise.??
The self-managed trust, which in July parted company with manager John Kennedy after 10 years, is currently under acting manager Alastair Mackinnon, who joined in 2003.
Mr Macdougall said: ??An increase in US interest rates has the potential to have a destabilising impact on global markets as the stimulatory measures employed since the financial crisis have relied upon the creation of additional debt. Investment markets are therefore likely to remain in thrall to the deliberations of the US Federal Reserve and other central banks.
??More positively, the recent sharp fall in the oil price is likely to have a stimulatory impact on economic activity and, if maintained, should filter through into an increase in consumer disposable income.??
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article