Witan is a rare bargain for small investors

Crucially, despite its impressive performance, it is trading on a 6.22 per cent discount. This discount has narrowed from around 12 per cent over the last few years, as the trust has found its feet, but Alan Brierley, head of investment trust research at Canaccord Genuity, puts the lingering discount down to investor psychology evolving more slowly than the trust bringing home the returns for investors.

"Back in the early 2000s, the trust was a perennial underachiever. But it has left its beleaguered reputation long behind and is now bouncing back. It produced an exceptional set of results and the best performance could still be yet to come for this trust, as the mangers are doing a lot of the right things."

Witan has done especially well since its manager, Andrew Bell, joined four years ago. In terms of cumulative total NAV returns, it has consistently beaten its benchmark over one, three and five years. We first tipped the trust as a buy in July 2013 at 630p after a solid run of performance caused a number of analysts, including Winterflood, to change their stance to a positive rating. Its share price is now 660.5p.

It's a multi-manager global growth investment trust, so it gives investors exposure to a wide range of investments - many of which they would not be able to access as small retail investors themselves. The trust, which is ranked ninth in its Morningstar category (Global Investment Trusts) hands investors' money over to eight external managers, who stock-pick in their specialist regions, ranging from the UK to the Far East. Seven out of eight of them have outperformed their respective benchmarks by a significant margin, according to a Canaccord Genuity report.

Witan invests mainly in finance (21.1 per cent), consumer services (16.1 per cent) and general industries (12.4 per cent). Its largest holdings are Reed Elsevier (1.78 per cent), Diageo (1.5 per cent) and BP (1.5 per cent), with 13.7 per cent of the portfolio invested in the top 10 holdings.

It's an accessible option for regular savers with small amounts to invest, as it comes with an option for a regular savings scheme which can be started with £50 a month or a £250 lump sum. This option could also make it suitable for a parent or grandparent wishing to start a savings plan for their children or grandchildren.

And although Witan is a multi manager trust, it still has a very reasonable ongoing charge of 0.73 per cent. Buy.

WITAN INVESTMENT TRUST (WTAN)