Alliance Trust ongoing charges drop by 20%

Alliance Trust has cut its ongoing charges figure (OCF) by 20% as part of its focus on cost-cutting.

The investment trust's OCF fell from 75bps to 60bps during the course of 2014, the trust said this morning in its annual results. The portfolio, now increasingly focused on sustainable investments, produced an NAV return of 8.1% over the year, with particular gains coming from the trust's residual private equity portfolio, it said. As a result, the group has increased its dividend by 14.3%, including a special dividend of 2.546p; the effective yield at the end of the year was 2.6%. Alliance Trust Investments, meanwhile, posted losses of £3.2m, a fall of 23%, and saw net inflows of ...