SVM moves half of Fof assets into heavily discounted ITs

SVM Asset Management has invested about half its fund of funds assets in investment trusts that have remained at excessively wide discounts to NAV since the credit crisis.

About half the £220m of assets across SVM's four fund of funds are invested in opportunities within the closed-ended space, up from about 15% in mid-2008. SVM buys in, then garners support from fellow shareholders to push for measures that will narrow the discount - a return to SVM's core activities in the early 1990s, according to fund manager Donald Robertson. "For much of the late 1990s and early 2000s there have not been these types of anomalies, but since the discounts blew out in 2008 and 2009, there have been some great opportunities to buy quality assets on big discounts." ...