Personal Assets Trust’s net asset value fell by 0.3% over the six months to the end of October 2015 – a much better result than for the FTSE All-Share index which fell by 7.3%. The share price rose by 0.5%. Dividends are running at £1.40 per share.
They didn’t much change the shape of the portfolio over the period except to reduce the exposure to overseas cash and equivalents from 6.1% to 1%. Within the equity portfolio, they reduced holdings in Becton Dickinson, Dr Pepper Snapple and Altria. These partial sales were based predominantly on valuation grounds. They believe, after very strong periods of performance, valuations are beginning to look stretched by historical standards. They acquired a new holding in Proctor & Gamble near the August lows, which was trading on a dividend yield of 3.8%, the highest since the late 1980s. Procter & Gamble has underperformed its peers in recent years but is undergoing a major reorganisation, divesting non-core brands and cutting excess costs. They say the company owns an enviable portfolio of household brands including Pampers, Pantene, Gillette and Fairy and its 59 years of consecutive dividend increases and an annual $10 billion of reliable free cash flow measure up highly satisfactorily to their investment criteria.
There is no performance attribution analysis in the report.
PNL : Personal Assets just about flat in falling market