Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust has raised its dividend for 29 consecutive years, making it the trust with the 11th longest record of doing this. However, its performance record outstrips most of the top 10 dividend raisers: it is one of the best performing global growth trusts in terms of share price and net asset value (NAV) over three and five years.
Its yield is not the highest, but the trust's mandate which is to maximise total return while also generating real dividend growth, rather than targeting absolute yield.
Manager James Anderson chooses stocks by looking at individual company attributes rather than looking at regions, industries or sectors. These attributes include strength of management, competitive position, customer perspective, prospects for sales and margins, current and potential valuation, how the market and his view differs, and what will happen after five years.
The number of equity holdings range between 50 and 100 and are chosen from around the world, and the trust can also hold bonds.
The trust does not attempt to track a benchmark index and the portfolio does not set out to reproduce it; the benchmark serves only as a reference point for judging performance. This means that there will be periods when performance diverges significantly from the benchmark so the trust can be volatile and under perform over short periods. The trust's manager takes a long-term perspective targeting an average holding period of five years or more.
The trust has a very reasonable total expense ratio (TER) of 0.75 per cent.
SCOTTISH MORTGAGE INVESTMENT TRUST (GB0007838849) | |||
| PRICE: | 670.78p | GEARING: | 117% |
| AIC SECTOR: | Global Growth | NAV: | 754.68p |
| FUND TYPE: | Investment Trust | PRICE DISCOUNT TO NAV: | 8.80% |
| MARKET CAP: | £1.7bn | 1-YEAR PRICE PERFORMANCE: | -7.56% |
| SET UP DATE: | 1 January 1909 | 3-YEAR PRICE PERFORMANCE: | 66.16% |
| TOTAL EXPENSE RATIO: | 0.75% | 5-YEAR PRICE PERFORMANCE: | 29.32% |
| YIELD: | 1.85% | MORE DETAILS: | bailliegifford.com |
Source: Morningstar
Performance data as at 7 May 2012
Top 10 holdings as at 31 March 2012
| Baidu | 8.3% |
| Amazon.com | 7.9% |
| Pinault Printemps Redout | 5.7% |
| Brazil CPI Linked 15/05/2045 | 5.1% |
| Atlas Copco | 4.8% |
| Tencent | 4.3% |
| Illumina | 3.0% |
| 3.0% | |
| Intuitive Surgical | 2.7% |
| Salesforce | 2.6% |
Geographic Breakdown
| North America | 27.2% |
| Continental Europe | 23.2% |
| Asia Pacific | 20.7% |
| United Kingdom | 12.3% |
| Emerging markets | 10.3% |
| Japan | 0.5% |
| Net liquid assets and bonds | 5.8% |
