Reasonable year for Schroder Oriental Income – Over the year to the end of August 2019, Schroder Oriental Income produced an NAV return of 3.7%. A small narrowing of the discount meant that shareholders got a return of 5.4%. The dividend was increased from 9.7p to 10.1p and there was sufficient income left over to add to the revenue reserve.
The trust’s ongoing charges rose from 0.84% to 0.86% – unusual for a fund that grew in size over the period. While the management fee was lower – helped by a tweak made to the way it is calculated – admin expenses rose by 20% and directors’ fees by more than 25%.
The manager’s report says that the return on the comparative performance benchmark (MSCI AC Pacific ex Japan) was 1.9% and goes on to say that “Key contributors were positions in Thailand, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong, despite the weakness in the last few months. Country allocation was helpful given the underweights in Korea, and Malaysia and over-weights in Thailand and Hong Kong. On the downside, the positions in Japan and New Zealand lagged.”
[The peculiar thing about the report is that neither the chairman or the manager makes mention of a single individual investment – it is as though the trust was allocating to Asian tracker funds. This obviously isn’t the case, and the report does go on to list the portfolio, but we have no indication of which holdings drove returns and why.]
SOI : Reasonable year for Schroder Oriental Income