Jupiter Green Investment Trust has published results for the year ended 31 March 2023. In NAV terms the trust delivered a total return of -0.4%, outperforming the wider Global Small Cap index, which returned -3.1%.
Shareholders benefited from an improved rating as the discount narrowed from 18.7% to 13.4%, the share price delivered a +6.7% return. The discount narrowing was encouraged by share repurchases; the company bought back a total of 328,726 shares for cancellation at an average discount of 14.4%, adding 0.3% to NAV.
There is a continuation vote scheduled for this year’s AGM, in September.
Extracts from the manager’s report
Despite the economic turbulence and volatility across investment markets, the period under review offered continued evidence that the Company’s focus on global environmental solutions can deliver attractive investment returns. In the wake of passage of the US IRA (which we believe will in time present a multi-year catalyst for environmental solutions), the Clean Energy theme, which includes companies such as First Solar, was particularly buoyant.
Infineon and Monolithic Power also both performed well. We added to these two names in Q4 following a sell-off across much of the semiconductor sector, which overlooked the structural growth opportunity and leadership both companies have in energy-efficient power solutions.
Another key contributor to performance was Ansys (which was bought during the period). Ansys is the world’s leading engineering simulation software provider with diversified end-market exposure and a strong financial profile. Sitting in our Circular Economy theme, Ansys provides solutions to reduce customers’ resource and material use by reducing physical prototypes in the R&D and testing phase of product development. Ansys released a strong set of full year results and guidance in February, which led to share price outperformance versus its peers.
The Sustainable Agriculture and Land theme was a notable detractor on a thematic basis, with European materials stocks such as DSM and Borregaard among the bottom of the portfolio contributors. A Eurocentric client base combined with energy cost pressures in Europe have presented a challenging near-term environment for such businesses. Another notable detractor was Advanced Drainage (Circular Economy), which issued a profits warning. In one of its divisions there was a destocking of inventories, which was more severe than management had anticipated and dampened expectations significantly.
JGC : Jupiter Green buoyed by narrower discount