Gregor Stewart

The bank’s six-month results to June 30 202, have revealed that the company’s Net Asset Value (NAV) Total Return was -3.5% and Total Shareholder Return (TSR) was -5.8% versus 0.5% for its benchmark, the MSCI All Country World Index (MSCI ACWI) and -0.8% for the peer group median.

Since the appointment of Willis Towers Watson (WTW) as the Company’s Investment Manager on 1 April 2017, the company’s Equity Portfolio Total Return, before fees, was 25.9%, broadly in broadly in line with the MSCI ACWI, which returned 26.2%. 

The six month period began with Alliance Trust’s shares trading at a discount of 4.1% and ended the period at a discount of 6.5%. The discount to NAV averaged 5.8% over the six months. (H1 2019: 5.1%).

Gregor Stewart, chairman of Alliance Trust PLC,commented: “After falling sharply in March as the pandemic spread rapidly across the globe, the value of the company’s assets recovered in subsequent months.

“However, against a particularly challenging market backdrop and during a period when our benchmark’s performance was skewed by very strong returns from the largest cap stocks, we lagged the market at the end of June.

“At this time, possibly more than any other, investors need a well-diversified portfolio that relies on individual company performance rather than gambling on macroeconomic bets. Our investment manager remains confident that our diversified, high conviction approach to stock picking across a broad range of countries, sectors and investment styles can deliver significant outperformance in the long run.

“In the meantime, we are pleased to declare a 3% increase in our second interim dividend. Unless we suffer greater market uncertainty than expected in the second half of the year, we expect to maintain that same rate of dividend growth for the whole year and to extend our current record of year-on-year dividend growth to 54 years and beyond. Although income from the portfolio will be reduced this year as a result of company dividend cuts and cancellations, our own distributable reserves remain strong.”