Good year for Witan – Global investment trust, Witan reported a return of 21.3% on its NAV for 2019, 1% ahead of its benchmark. Shareholders did slightly better than that, with returns of 22.1% as the discount narrowed from 1.3% to 0.7%. The dividend was upped by 13.8% to 5.35p (doubling in a decade).
Returns were helped by gearing but the underlying portfolio did edge ahead of its benchmark. There were no changes to Witan’s core list of third party managers, although allocations were varied during the year to reflect investment opportunities and to implement changes in gearing. At the end of the year, the UK portfolio managed by Lindsell Train (which had outperformed its bench,mark by 6% a year since 2010) was changed to a global equity mandate.
The table shows that Artemis, Heronbridge and SW Mitchell had a particularly good year in 2019 while Matthews and Witan’s in-house team struggled a bit. Over the longer term, both of the latter two managers have beaten their respective benchmarks.
WTAN : Good year for Witan