Witan reinvigorated

16th Mar 2011 08:25

Venerable Witan Investment Trust, founded 102 years ago, showed there is still life in the old dog as it outperformed its benchmark index in 2010. Net asset value (NAV) total return in 2010 was 18.9%, compared with a return on the trust's benchmark index of 15.5%. Share buybacks contributed half a percentage point to the outperformance, while gearing boosted outperformance by 1.9 percentage points.Like most investment trusts Witan prefers to take a longer term view of its performance, and added that over five years the Witan NAV total return has been 38.1% which translates into a 6.7% per annum compound rate of return, while the share price total return has been 7.1% per annum, despite the market crisis in 2008.The company has declared a second interim dividend of 6.5p per share, bringing the full year pay-out up to 10.9p, up from 10.5p in 2009. The annual dividend has now been increased for 36 years in a row."Recent data indicate that the global recovery remains intact. However politicians are performing a high wire act, trying to balance the imperative of continued economic growth on the one hand and the need to resolve the debt crisis on the other. It would seem that higher inflation is probably the inevitable outcome," opined Witan chairman Harry Henderson.Notwithstanding the immediate uncertainties caused by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the board believes that "in the years ahead a well diversified portfolio of global equities offers the opportunity to participate in positive longer term trends in the global economy, as well as offering some protection against the risks of higher inflation."