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Share buy-back cushions Witan's NAV slide

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Date: Wednesday 20 Aug 2008

LONDON (ShareCast) - Witan Investment Trust saw its net asset value per share slide in the first half of 2008, but its share buy-back programme helped performance beat the company’s benchmark.

Net asset value (NAV) per share fell 12.6% to 418.25p in the first half of 2008, and the discount between share price and the NAV widened to 12.2% at the end of June from 11% at the end of 2007.

Earnings per share rose to 7.17p from 6.56p in the first half of 2007, helped in part by the company buying back 7.1m shares, though this was down from the 15.3m shares repurchased in the first half of last year.

The Trust’s two new UK managers, Artemis and Marathon, are outperforming their benchmarks this year but the other new manager appointed this year, Varenne, which manages a pan-European portfolio, is under-performing.

Among the established fund managers, the performance of Southeastern and Orbis has been disappointing. Both of these managers follow “value-driven” philosophies, and this investment doctrine has not been successful over the last 12 to 18 months.

The interim dividend has been raised from 4.1p to 4.3p.

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