18th Dec 2025 10:40
(Alliance News) - JPMorgan Japanese Investment Trust PLC on Thursday reported a rise in its full-year net asset value total return, beating its benchmark index, as gains were made on AI and defence.
JPMorgan Investment, which seeks capital growth from a portfolio of investments in Japanese companies, said NAV per share stood at 766.2 pence at September 30, up 24% from 619.2p year-on-year.
The fair-value NAV total return was 25.0% for the year ended September 30, rising from 24.2% last year. This beat the trust's benchmark return, which was 16.9%.
Noting that Japan had begun to spend a larger proportion of its GDP on defence, the company said it had added domestic contractors to its portfolio during the period, such as heavy engineering conglomerate IHI Corp.
JPMorgan Japanese added that several of its holdings are intended to capitalise on AI-enabled modernisation.
Accordingly, Advantest Corp, a semiconductor and testing equipment supplier, and IHI were two of the most significant contributors to returns over the past year, the trust said.
Meanwhile, Keyence Corp, Japan Exchange Group Inc and Tokyo Electron Ltd were said to be the biggest detractors from returns over the year.
The trust declared a final dividend of 8.70p, rising 29% from 6.75p last year.
Looking ahead, JPMorgan Japanese said trends such as "de-globalisation, supply-chain reshoring, the modernisation of defence capabilities, and accelerating digitisation" provide "optimism" for future growth.
"This outperformance is a testament to our investment team's ability to identify and capitalise on opportunities, even as value stocks continued to outperform the quality and growth stocks usually favoured by the portfolio managers," said Chair Stephen Cohen.
"Their focus on companies which are enthusiastically embracing corporate reforms and benefiting accordingly, boosted relative returns. So did the portfolio managers' decision to increase exposure to new growth areas, notably defence."
Shares in JPMorgan Japanese fell 0.7% to 702.14p on Thursday morning in London.
By Roya Shahidi, Alliance News reporter
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