Scottish Mortgage has released figures for the year ended 31 March 2014. It was good year for the fund as the net asset value total return of 23.1% was well ahead of the 6.8% return on the FTSE All-World Index. The share price did even better, returning 28.9% as the discount closed to zero.
The final dividend was upped to 7.6p – overall the dividend rose by 3.6%. They achieved the dividend increase though by dipping into Scottish Mortgage’s revenue reserves.
The share price exceeds £10 now and so the Board has decided it makes sense to split the shares so that shareholders will end up with five shares for every share they own today.
In other changes, the Board is proposing to change the way that expenses are allocated (from 50:50 capital and income to 75:25 – boosting the revenue account) and allowing the fund to distribute capital if needs be. There is also a proposal to allow the portfolio to be more concentrated (currently there is a restriction that holdings larger than 3% of the portfolio can not add up to more than 40% of the assets – this will be scrapped if shareholders approve).