Alliance Trust comes through tortuous year to up dividend

The past twelve months has seen vicious wrangling with activist investors Elliot Advisors which ended in an uneasy truce.

That prompted in an historic board shake-up which that saw the demotion and then departure of chief executive Katherine Garrett-Cox and huge changes made to the way the business operates.

However, the investment trust will pay out a total dividend of 12.43p per share, up 0.4 per cent on 2014, having generated a total shareholder return of 10.7 per cent in the year to 31 December, with a net asset value (NAV) total return of 5.4 per cent.

That compared with the benchmark MSCI ACWI return of 3.8 per cent.

The firm has also managed to narrow its discount to 8.1 per cent, down from 12.4 per cent last year.

It attracted net inflows of £81m, ending the year with third party assets under management of £2.1bn.

Total AUM stands at around £5bn.

Losses were reduced by 36 per cent to £2.1m.

Management said it was on track to reach its target charges ratio of 0.45 per cent by the end of this year, making it one of the lowest in the global investment trust sector.

Chairman Lord Smith of Kelvin said: “2015 was an eventful year for Alliance Trust and highlighted that shareholders expected change. In order to deliver this, we set out a package of changes on 1 October to enhance shareholder value and the process to implement them is well under way.

“We have already made good progress. In particular, the investment team is continuing to deliver improved investment returns, significantly outperforming the benchmark. At the same time the discount to NAV has narrowed and we are on target to achieve our cost cutting objectives.”