Scottish Oriental Smaller Companies Trust Share News (SST)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The Scottish Oriental Smaller Companies Trust PLC on Friday reported a negative net asset value return for the first half of 2018 financial year due to low exposure to Chinese companies and poor returns from Indonesia and the Philippines.

The trust reported a negative net asset value return of 2.3% for the six months to the end of February, underperforming against the 3.4% positive return recorded by the MSCI AC Asia ex Japan Index, 4.2% positive return by the MSCI AC Asia ex Japan Small Cap Index and a 0.9% negative return by the FTSE All-Share Index.

Net asset value per share as at February 28 was 1,147.10 pence, down from 1,192.68p for the same date the year before. Share price at the end of February was 980.00 pence, reflecting a 14.6% discount to net asset value.

Shares in Scottish Oriental Smaller were down 0.4% at 977.90 pence on Friday.

"2017 saw a strong recovery in global growth and this has been reflected through strong share price performance by Asia's companies - particularly those in more cyclical sectors. Our concern remains that this improvement in growth has happened against a backdrop of rising debt levels at a time when interest rates are near all-time low levels. Although interest rates have started to rise, the pace of these increases has been modest," Scottish Oriental said in a statement.