The change comes 10 years after Aberdeen Asset Management took the 94 mile trip to acquire Edinburgh Fund Managers in 2003. In 2007, the trust was enlarged significantly through the acquisition of Tribune UK Tracker Trust, which had a similar objective.
The trust is the only closed-ended vehicle that tracks a UK index, the FTSE All Share. As at the end of 2012, the portfolio comprised 576 stocks, compared to 605 constituents of its benchmark – the stocks not held represented 0.17% of the index.
Manager David McCraw said: “Quarterly reviews of the portfolio keep a natural cap on transaction activity as the trust, in theory, needs to be rebalanced only four times each year. Changes can, however, occur more frequently, for example if the structure of the Index alters due to any one of the following: corporate restructuring, new issues, scrip issues, rights issues, acquisitions, mergers and changes in the constituents of the Index.
“All of this means that the overall ongoing charges are able to be kept as low as 0.31% which is extremely competitive when compared against open-ended fund peers. Over the long term, such low costs should prove beneficial to investors as any cost drag on performance is minimised.”
Meanwhile, in the actively-managed UK equity space, manager moves have made things very interesting indeed.
