Witan stands by performance fee model after strong year

The Witan Investment trust has said it will continue to invest in funds which charge performance fees as it revealed a strong set of results for 2013.

The £1.5bn trust produced a NAV total return of 29.4%, above the 20.7% returned by its benchmark, with the total dividend for the year rising 9.1% to 14.4p. The strong returns were accompanied by a rise in its ongoing charges, from 0.97% to 1.12% once performance fees were taken into account. That compares with an average of 0.77% for the AIC Global Growth sector and an average of 1.69% for the IMA Flexible Investment sector, Witan said. Analysts at Numis added the charges remain "very low for a multi-manager vehicle". Having completed a review of its underlying managers over th...