Witan offers investors a highly efficient way of getting exposure to global equities, with all the benefits of active management but with few of the disadvantages. The highly diversified portfolio has little key man risk thanks to the multi-manager approach and is different to other global trusts thanks to the in-house executive team, which is fully aligned with Witan’s shareholders. The portfolio is designed relatively simply and sees the majority of the trust’s assets invested with ‘core’ managers (c. 75%) and the balance using ‘specialist’ teams. Currently, there are eight main underlying managers, as well as other smaller exposures, including a number of investment trusts. Reflecting the long-term investment approach, changing allocations between managers is expected to be infrequent, although as we discuss in Portfolio, October has seen some activity in this regard. Since the adoption of the current ‘manager of managers’ approach, Witan has outperformed its benchmark and delivered dividend growth well ahead of inflation. The period since the pandemic has presented challenges, but the executive team were quick to address the changed outlook, and the performance has directly benefitted from their actions. The underlying portfolio is currently well balanced, with exposure to companies with enduring cash-flows, higher growth companies, and undervalued, cyclical businesses. This helps explain the decent relative Performance over the last 12 months despite a changeable market environment. Notwithstanding the pressures felt by many trusts, Witan’s board increased the 2020 Dividend by 1.9%, taking the ten-year compounded growth to 9.6% annualised. We expect to hear confirmation on the dividend for the current financial year in March 2022. Witan currently yields 2.3% on a historic basis.
08 Dec 2021
Witan - Overview
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Witan - Overview
Witan Investment Trust PLC (WTAN:LON) | 250 -3.7 (-0.6%) | Mkt Cap: 1,521m
- Published:
08 Dec 2021 -
Author:
William Heathcoat Amory -
Pages:
8
Witan offers investors a highly efficient way of getting exposure to global equities, with all the benefits of active management but with few of the disadvantages. The highly diversified portfolio has little key man risk thanks to the multi-manager approach and is different to other global trusts thanks to the in-house executive team, which is fully aligned with Witan’s shareholders. The portfolio is designed relatively simply and sees the majority of the trust’s assets invested with ‘core’ managers (c. 75%) and the balance using ‘specialist’ teams. Currently, there are eight main underlying managers, as well as other smaller exposures, including a number of investment trusts. Reflecting the long-term investment approach, changing allocations between managers is expected to be infrequent, although as we discuss in Portfolio, October has seen some activity in this regard. Since the adoption of the current ‘manager of managers’ approach, Witan has outperformed its benchmark and delivered dividend growth well ahead of inflation. The period since the pandemic has presented challenges, but the executive team were quick to address the changed outlook, and the performance has directly benefitted from their actions. The underlying portfolio is currently well balanced, with exposure to companies with enduring cash-flows, higher growth companies, and undervalued, cyclical businesses. This helps explain the decent relative Performance over the last 12 months despite a changeable market environment. Notwithstanding the pressures felt by many trusts, Witan’s board increased the 2020 Dividend by 1.9%, taking the ten-year compounded growth to 9.6% annualised. We expect to hear confirmation on the dividend for the current financial year in March 2022. Witan currently yields 2.3% on a historic basis.