Over the year to the end of December 2016, Aberforth Smaller Companies delivered a return on net assets of 5.8%, lagging its benchmark which returned 11.1%. The discount widened and so the return to shareholders was -4.2%. They are paying dividends for the year of 27.35p, which represents an increase of 5.2% on 2015. The Board is also
proposing the payment of a special dividend of 2.75p per share.
There’s a continuation vote coming up at the next AGM. The fund has underperformed its benchmark of the last three accounting periods but the Board thinks shareholders should stick by the manager’s value style of investing.
There is a general lack of stock specific performance attribution. The main drag on performance was an underweight exposure to the mining sector relative to the benchmark.
ASL : Board asks Aberforth Smaller shareholders to back continuation