AN INVESTMENT trust that counts oil majors Royal Dutch Shell and BP among its largest holdings put in a solid performance last year, outperforming the FTSE All-Share index by eight percentage points, writes Margaret Taylor.

Edinburgh Partners’ Global Opportunities Trust saw its net asset value per share rise by 25.5 per cent in the year to December, outstripping the All-Share’s rise of 16.8 per cent but failing to match the FTSE All-World’s 29.6 per cent.

Manager Sandy Nairn said the trust’s large exposure to the oil sector began to pay off during the year as share prices started to recover. He added that US exploration and production company Apache was one of the trust’s best-performing stocks.

Investors will receive a dividend of 5.3p per share for the year, up from 3.1p.