Schroder Income Growth Fund has announced results for the year ended 31 August 2015. During the year under review, the net asset value produced a total return of 3.1%, comparing favourably to a total return of -2.3% for the FTSE All-Share Index. The share price total return for the year was 5.1% as the net asset value narrowed during the period from 3.1% at the start of the year to 1.5% on 31 August 2015. The Board has declared total dividends of 10.30 pence per share for the year ended 31 August 2015, an increase of 2.0%. This marks the 20th year of consecutive dividend increases for the trust.
The manager’s report says the contributions to the outperformance were spread across a range of sectors, including stock selection within consumer goods shares such as house builders (eg Taylor Wimpey and Bellway) and tobacco companies (Imperial Tobacco). There were also good contributions from the holdings in Friends Life (taken over by Aviva), Synthomer (where new management is improving the Asian business and focusing on shareholder returns), and Microfocus (an IT software company which made a transformational takeover of a US company).
The companies that were avoided, by a large degree, were any involved with commodities. Rio Tinto was one of the portfolio’s worst performers, but overall the Company benefited relative to the index by being underweight in commodity companies and from its stock choice within mining (eg selling Glencore in January and not owning Anglo American).
SCF : Good year for Schroder Income Growth as celebrates 20 years of dividend increases