Asian investments help Scottish IT

26th Nov 2010 17:40

Strong performances by Asian investments helped Scottish Investment Trust to offset a poor performance from its US investments earlier in the year. The strong second half helped Scottish IT to generate a total return of 17% over the year to October 2010, which was slightly behind its benchmark index. Ex-income NAV with borrowings at market value grew nearly 15% to 515.7p a share. The final dividend is 5.6p a share, taking the total for the year to 10.05p a share - a 4.7% increase on 2008-09. Dividend income was hit by the los of the BP dividend which the trust estimates knocked 0.25p off earnings per share. That was still less than the overall decline in earnings per share from 10.62p to 10.26p. Scottish IT was still able to increase its own dividend for the 27th year in a row. The fund managers of the trust are still concerned that the EU draft regulation for alternative investment fund managers could have a knock-on effect on investment trusts.