North American Income Trust has announced its results for the period ended 31 January 2014. Perhaps the most significant figure in these is a 38.5% increase in the dividend (from 19.5p to 27.0p). this comes on the back of a more than 50% rise in revenue per share and pushes the yield on the fund to 3.5% (at 31 January prices).
The total return on net assets lagged the S&P 500 index however as the fund generated a return of 9.9% vs. 17.25 for the index. The manager attributes the underperformance to good returns from smaller and lower yielding companies, where the portfolio is underweight, the weakness of the Canadian dollar relative to sterling and a few stock specific problems including holding Philip Morris (where sales were disappointing) and not holding Google (which performed very well but does not yield enough to merit inclusion in the portfolio).