RESURGENT housebuilders and outstanding performance from some technology companies helped the Independent Investment Trust stage a strong recovery in the six months to the end of May.

The trust, which is managed and chaired respectively by former Baillie Gifford stalwarts Max Ward and Douglas McDougall, made a net asset value total return of 35.5 per cent over the period, far outstripping the FTSE All Share ‘s 13.6 per cent and FTSE World’s 10.1 per cent.

This is in stark contrast to the trust’s performance in the full year to November 2016, when heavy exposure to UK-focused companies in the wake of the Brexit vote saw it return just five percent against the indices respective returns of 9.8 per cent and 25.6 per cent.

Mr McDougall said the six months had been “relatively uneventful” in economic terms, meaning an interest rate rise in the US had little impact on stock markets while “a modest recovery in sterling” was of benefit to the trust.

“It has also been an outstanding period for our large technology and telecommunications stake - worth £44.6 million at 30 November 2016, it had risen in value to £61.0m by 31 May 2017 after £5.9m of net sales,” Mr McDougall said.

“The star of the show was the robotic process automation company, Blue Prism, which has become something of a stock market darling as its software robots have been snapped up by big blue chip companies on both sides of the Atlantic.”

On housebuilders, he said that “in contrast to the many gloomy predictions a year ago, the market for new homes has remained buoyant” with those holdings that target first-time buyers producing “results well in excess of the expectations we had before the vote to leave the European Union”.

The trust will pay an interim dividend of 2p per share and expects to make a final payment of 3p. Any surplus income will be paid out in a special dividend.