30th December 2021 by Faith Glasgow from interactive investor
At the end of 2020, we looked ahead into the coming year and tried to pick out some key trends likely to shape the investment trust industry in 2021. It was a difficult, locked-down time, but our experts accurately identified several important themes.
Most significant was the move towards sustainability that took place in 2021…
An upturn in IPOs was another leading trend picked out by our commentators, with sustainable and environmentally themed listings leading the pack…
McHattie highlights the growing importance of retail investors…improving websites and better access to webinars and other events previously inaccessible to private investors.
As far as macroeconomic factors are concerned, the big issue facing fund managers and investors is rising inflation and potential further interest rate rises…
Dowling also highlights growth in the use of unquoted companies within investment trusts…
While 2019 and 2020 saw minimal consolidation among trusts, with just three mergers in total, there has been more activity in 2021…
James Carthew, head of investment companies at QuotedData, hopes for more. He focuses in particular on the fact that “there are too many UK equity income funds”…
As already mentioned, IPOs had a good year in 2021, particularly relating to environmental/sustainable themes. McHattie expects that trend to continue next year.
Carthew, too, anticipates more expansion within the renewable energy sector. However, unlike McHattie, he believes it will be hard for new renewables funds to differentiate themselves thereafter, and “the focus will be more on growing the existing ones”. The sector is likely to raise significant amounts of money in 2022, he adds.
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