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(Alliance News) - JPMorgan Claverhouse Investment Trust PLC on Thursday said net asset value increased in its latest financial year, although it slightly underperformed its benchmark index.
The UK equities-focused investment trust said its NAV per share was 705.7 pence at December 31, up from 691.3p at the same time a year prior.
Shares in JPMorgan Claverhouse were up 1.0% at 679.00p on Thursday in London.
JPMorgan Claverhouse delivered an NAV total return of positive 7.3% for 2023, compared to positive 7.9% from the FTSE All-Share index. This improved on the company's negative 4.6% total return for 2022.
Chair David Fletcher said the positive result was in large part due to a "more favourable environment", explaining: "Supportive factors over the latter six months of the year included a marked easing in inflation pressures, which raised hopes that the Bank of England will begin to cut rates this year."
JPMorgan Claverhouse's total dividend for the year was 34.5p per share, up 4.5% from 33.0p and comprised of quarterly interim payouts. The fourth of these was 10.5p per share, unchanged from the last quarter of 2022, and was paid in early March.
Fletcher noted that the increased payout marked "the 51st successive year in which the dividend has been raised, a record which only very few investment trusts have attained, and at a time with elevated core inflation and a stagnated UK economy".
Going forward, the chair said the economy "seems to be over the worst of its inflation and cost-of-living crisis", leaving JPMorgan Claverhouse with " cautious optimism about the outlook for the market and the company in 2024 and beyond".
The company's portfolio managers, Fletcher added, "have been actively positioning the portfolio to take greater advantage of better times ahead", while UK equities have maintained "extremely attractive" valuations. On the other hand, the geopolitical climate "remains worrying".
JPMorgan Claverhouse also identified artificial intelligence as its "sole emerging risk", saying that advances in AI "will impact a huge range of areas and with a wide range of applications that include the potential to disrupt and even to harm" and "could be a significant disrupter leading to added uncertainty in corporate valuations".
Nonetheless, Fletcher said: "We believe [our portfolio managers'] continuing efforts, combined with a diversified portfolio of high-quality stocks and a disciplined investment approach, mean the company is well-positioned to continue delivering attractive returns and a growing income to shareholders over the long term."
By Emma Curzon, Alliance News reporter
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