FRIENDS Ivory & Sime UK Smaller Companies Trust crept ahead of its benchmark in its second half but not by enough to avoid a below-par result for the full year to March 31.
UK Smaller, which had shareholders' funds of #46m and borrowings of #6m at end-March, posted an 11.4% rise in undiluted net asset value to 219.08p for the 12 months. Its benchmark index, the FTSE SmallCap (excluding investment trusts), gained 13.0% over the same period.
UK Smaller had a sparkling record under fund manager John Dodd, who left Ivory & Sime (now Friends Ivory & Sime) in the spring of last year.
His successor, John Johnston, had to report an underperformance at the halfway stage. But changes made to UK Smaller's portfolio by Johnston and his team appeared to pay off in the second half. Undiluted net asset value was up 13.8% in this six-month period, slightly ahead of the 13.6% advance in the benchmark.
Johnston left Friends Ivory at the beginning of February and has been managing Glasgow-based Murray Johnstone's Murray Enterprise Trust for the last two months.
UK Smaller, which has a capital growth focus, is holding its total dividend at 2.9p with a final pay-out of 1.9p.
The pay-out for the two previous financial years was also 2.9p, and for the three periods prior to that it was 2.8p.
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