The Temple Bar Investment Trust outperformed its benchmark for the first six months of the year after switching its investment manager from Ninety One to RWC.
According to its half -year results statement, TBIT’s net asset value return was 19.3% compared with a FTSE All Share index return of 11.1%.
The £714m trust has benefitted from the recent value rally that began last Autumn on the back of positive coronavirus vaccine news.
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“The rapid and successful roll out of vaccine programmes has convinced the markets that the most damaging effects of Coronavirus are behind us and that as economies open up, some sort of normality can now resume,” the investment managers, Ian Lance (pictured) and Nick Purves, said.
“For the greater part of the six-month period, it was the more economically sensitive areas of the market that led the market higher, although towards the end of the period there was some nervousness that economic growth rates were peaking but that interest rates might have to rise somewhat earlier than expected, nevertheless. As ‘value’ stocks are highly represented in the more cyclical sectors, they outperformed during the six-month period,” they added.
TBIT’s board has declared two interim dividends of 9.75p each and has also committed to paying a total dividend of at least 39p for the full year.
RWC managers Lance and Purves were awarded the management of the trust in September 2020 following “an exhaustive review”, tasked with “reinvigorating the trust” and turn around its performance.
For the past five years, TBIT has been one of the worst performers among its peers in the AIC UK Equity Income sector. The past year, however, the trust has been one of the best performers in the sector.
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“The period under review stands in sharp contrast to the corresponding period in 2020,” said TBIT’s chairman, Arthur Copple. “The first half of 2021 saw your company perform extremely well as mispriced value stocks generally did significantly better than the rest of the UK market.”
