24th Jan 2014 14:48
LONDON (Alliance News) - The Independent Investment Trust PLC Friday said it gave a 20.2% total return over the course of the year, but Chairman Douglas McDougall said the trust had failed to make best of buoyant markets.
The trust made a GBP25.7 million gain on investments for the year ended November 30, compared with GBP9.5 million last year.
"We note with due humility that we have, for a second year in succession, failed to capitalize properly on market conditions whose exuberance is reflected in notional total returns of over 30% for both the FTSE 250 and the FTSE Small Companies indices," McDougall said in a statement.
"Our judgement proved to be too cautious: we held substantial amounts of cash over the period, and the equity portfolio had a more defensive bias than we might normally be associated with," the chairman added.
Earnings per share for the year were 6.16 pence against last year's 5.81p.
The revenue account turned out better than had been expected at the time of the trust's interim report because of lower cash balances and an unexpectedly high level of special dividends.
"As promised at that time we are proposing a final dividend of 3p to give a regular dividend of 5p (5p in 2012). In addition, we are proposing a special dividend of 1p to reflect the substantial contribution of one off payments to our earnings for the year," McDougall said.
The trust's shares were Friday quoted at 266 pence, down 2 pence, or 0.8%.
By Samuel Agini; [email protected]; @samuelagini
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