As the saying about irrational markets and insolvent investors suggests, contrarian stock pickers don’t always last long enough to see their theses play out. In one sense, that was true of the Scottish Investment Trust: a global equity fund that eschewed the US mega caps for value stocks, it belatedly delivered the goods in the teeth of recent market rotations following a long spell of underperformance.
- Nimble process
- Pragmatic approach to dividends
- Bottom-up stock selection
- Strong track record
- No performance fees
- Limited use of gearing
- Some obvious mega-cap picks
Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to save it from failing to beat its benchmark over a specific five-year period, and a review that ultimately led to the trust being merged into one of its peers just a few weeks ago. And yet shareholders look to have found themselves in good hands, with Scottish merging into JPMorgan Global Growth & Income (JGGI).