Brunner Investment Trust (LSE:BUT) PLC hailed a 51st consecutive year of increasing its dividend and a fourth benchmark-beating rise in its net asset value last year.
A proposed final dividend of 6.05p lifts the total for 2022 to 21.5p, a 6.7% increase compared to the previous year, cementing its place as one of the industry’s ‘dividend heroes’.
The investment company's net asset value (NAV) per ordinary share rose 3.0% on a net dividends reinvested basis with debt at fair value, its key performance measure.
This compared to a 1.4% total return increase for its composite benchmark index, which is 70% FTSE World Ex-UK and 30% FTSE All Share Index.
This outperformance was the fourth year of outperformance against the benchmark. In the extremely varied and volatile conditions of these years "we believe this is a continuing testament to the company's investment strategy", Brunner said.
The portfolio's earnings grew 11.% to 22.7p, as most companies continued to pay dividends at or above the previous year’s pandemic recovery level.
“This has put Brunner in the strong position once again to pay an increased dividend whilst increasing dividend reserves,” the company said.
Revenue reserves will still increase to 25.9p from 24.7p a year ago, after the payment of the proposed final dividend.
Last year saw Christian Schneider, who is deputy CIO for AllianzGI's Global Growth franchise, take over as the lead manager of the investment trust, as Matthew Tillett left AllianzGI.
Schneider, who had already been working directly on the Brunner portfolio, took over as interim lead portfolio manager on Tillet’s departure for a minimum period of six months and will continue to work with Marcus Morris-Eyton and Simon Gergel, AllianzGI's CIO UK Equities.
Brunner said the investment trust “will continue to be managed as an all-weather portfolio appropriate for a multitude of different market conditions with its balanced approach to portfolio construction and strong focus on valuation”.
This means, it added, not being skewed too heavily to any one sector or theme, taking a longer term view on investments, and being “true” to the bottom-up stock picking style, where stock selection is the predominant driver of risk and return in the portfolio.
The portfolio was just over 42% invested in North American stocks at the end of November, 27% European and 22% UK.
Top five holdings were United Health, Microsoft, Visa, Munich Re and Shell.