Last year we published a number of studies showing that investment trust managers were counteracting the rise of passive vehicles by further concentrating their portfolios and using the advantages of the closed-end structure such as gearing and the ability to pay income from capital more aggressively. New analysis from the team at Kepler shows that that over the past five years, trusts which have seen the greatest reduction in number of stocks in portfolios have generated the highest levels of alpha. Similarly those trusts which reduced their turnover the most have generated a higher alpha compared with those which haven’t. This corroborates the academic literature on the subject. In our view this finding is a strong indicator of the future direction for investment trusts in combating the threat from passives. In this article we dive into the data, which shows that having more active portfolios has delivered strong benefits for shareholders. We also consider the reasons why the investment trust universe remains a place that active managers can outperform. Finally we highlight three trusts that have most recently taken decisive steps to become significantly more active.
