Annual Investment Trust Review of 2024
Annual Reports
Create Your Own Catalyst
For the investment trust sector, 2024 was better than the previous two years, with the FTSE All Share Closed End Investments Index delivering a positive total return of +8.7%, albeit this still represented a slight underperformance of the FTSE All Share (+9.5%). However, last year will hardly be remembered as a good year for the sector, with the weighted average discount (ex 3i Group) drifting even wider, from 12.6% to 14.7%. Against this backdrop of sustained wide discounts, a number of themes emerged or persisted. A key talking point in the industry, particularly at the end of the year, was the actions of activist investors, attracted to the UK investment trust market by the opportunity to extract value from the current ratings. In addition, and perhaps partially prompted by the threat of activism, 2024 saw funds taking wide-ranging actions to mitigate discounts, in our view demonstrating the benefit of independent Boards. These actions included the implementation of mergers and managed wind-downs, the introduction of conditional tender offers, and a considerable increase in buybacks, which totalled £7.6bn over the year, nearly double the amount seen in 2023, which was at that stage the highest on record.
To see this content in full, please log in to your account.
Client log in
Please note that this website is part of Winterflood's research service and therefore only available to MiFID II compliant research clients. For further information please e-mail research@winterflood.com