Over the year ended 31 December 2013 RIT Capital Partners generated a total return on net assets of 18.6%. Its discount widened a little and so the return to shareholders was 14.0%. By contrast the return on the MSCI All Country World Index (after some fiddling around with currencies – they use 50% translated back to sterling and 50% in local currencies) was 23.0%.
Jacob Rothschild’s report (as Chairman of the fund, pictured) stresses its focus on preservation of shareholders’ capital. They aim to beat RPI +3% and managed that comfortably over 2013. He said “the preservation of shareholders’ capital, … remains our highest priority taking precedence over tactical manoeuvres based on short-term returns” and this accounts for RCP’s underperformance vs . the World Index – their exposure to gold and gold mining companies was also unhelpful.
They made a number of sizeable private investments during the year including Metron (Norwegian oil & gas) and Williams & Glyn (spin-out of part of RBS’s UK banking business).