Henderson EuroTrust has announced results for the year ended 31 July 2015. The net asset value per share total return (including dividends reinvested and excluding transaction costs) was 13.9% compared to a total return from the benchmark index, the FTSE World Europe (ex UK) Index of 9.6%. The final dividend will be 13.0p, (2014: 12.5p) producing a total dividend for the year of 18.5p (2014: 17.5p), an increase of 5.7% on the previous year. As at 31 July 2015 the Company’s shares were trading at a small premium to NAV of 0.7%, in comparison to trading at a small discount of 0.9% at the prior year end. The share price total return for the year was 15.8%. This is the eighth consecutive year of outperformance against the benchmark.
Tim Stevenson’s manager’s report says the main contributors and detractors to performance during the year are include Fresenius and Fresenius Medical Care, which both made good contributions, as did Partners Group (which incidentally featured in fund performance detractors last year, once again demonstrating the need for patience). The largest negatives were Statoil and OW Bunker.
On the latter, OW Bunker was the first bankruptcy of a holding in the Company’s 23 year history. OW Bunker collapsed after a fraud in its Singapore subsidiary. The cost to the Company was about 1.2% of NAV on the day the stock’s value was written down to zero on the announcement, but this impact was mitigated by the diverse nature of our holdings and the appreciation of many of those on the same day.
Tim says that, while he thinks it is unlikely that we will recoup any of the fund’s investment, they (together with other institutional shareholders) are pursuing the matter through the proper channels in Denmark where the company had only recently listed. He apologises to shareholders for this loss, but is afraid it was a fraud and points out that they have more than recouped the loss by success elsewhere.
Henderson EuroTrust outperforms for 8th year running : HNE