Garrett-Cox hits out over focus on Alliance Trust's discount

Alliance Trust chief executive Katherine Garrett-Cox has said investment trust buyers are too fixated with discounts, urging them to look more at long term share price and NAV performance.

As discounts are primarily used as a short-term trading opportunity, Garrett-Cox (pictured) argues long-term shareholders should not become ‘fixated' when companies move on to a discount. Her comments come at a time when her trust is currently trading at a 15% discount, one of the widest in the sector. Over the past two years the £2.5bn trust's high discount has been used by some members of its shareholder register to instigate arbitrage. Alliance Trust responded by initiating a large share buyback program to tighten its discount, which began eighteen months ago. It has bought over...