Jupiter Primadona’s annual results, covering the year ended 30 June 2015, show the fund generating a total return of 7.6%, 3% more than its benchmark. The return to shareholders was 7.9%. The quarterly dividends were maintained at 1.6p to give 6.4p for the year as a whole.
The fund has been called Jupiter Primadona Growth Trust plc since 1997, having originally been incorporated in 1972 as Primadona Limited. While this name remains familiar to longer term investors, the Board have decided that it would benefit the Trust and its shareholders if the fund had a more appropriate name. They are therefore proposing that the name be changed to Jupiter Global Trust plc, and accordingly a special resolution will be submitted for shareholder approval at the forthcoming Annual General Meeting on 16 November 2015.
The UK portion of the portfolio outperformed the FTSE All–Share index by 2.1% while the overseas component of the Company’s portfolio, which is invested in other funds, returned 16.1%, which compares with a return of 10.7% on the FTSE World (ex UK) index.
The manager says, after a relatively lacklustre performance in the first half of the financial year, the Company delivered strong growth in the second half of the year as core holdings in the UK and the portfolio’s global exposure delivered good returns.
In the first half of the year they reduced the portfolio weighting to the UK, where despite continuing economic growth markets underperformed international peers, and positioned the reduced UK exposure to take advantage of the recovery in domestic consumer spending, a stance which was rewarded by the strong performance of companies including house builder Crest Nicholson, Dixons Carphone and children’s retailer Mothercare. They also sought to take advantage of a strengthening UK economy via banking sector holdings Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland, two recovery stories which both outperformed the wider UK market.
It was another good year for US equities and the portfolio benefited from both the upward march of the S&P 500 in 2014 and the stronger US dollar over the period. The fund’s holding in the Findlay Park American Fund was the single largest contributor to the Company’s annual return, while the position in the Jupiter North American Fund also performed strongly. The Company’s allocation to Japan also benefited from the country’s improved economic outlook and the reflationary policies pursued by the Bank of Japan. The portfolio’s Japanese exposure was hedged against yen weakness for much of the year, but in May they removed the hedges, anticipating that sterling might weaken following the UK General Election. At the time of writing they have no currency hedges in place.
Elsewhere, performance was aided by our exposure to European equities. In particular, the holding in the Jupiter European Opportunities Trust outperformed the wider European equity market to deliver double digit share price growth. However, the Company’s mining and oil and gas exposure created a drag on performance following the collapse of global oil prices in the second half of 2014. Company holdings which ended the year in negative territory included Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Glencore. They sold out of a number of positions and reduced our overall exposure to the sector over the course of the year.
JPG : No longer a Primadona