Scottish Mortgage annual report: Reiterates confidence on Tesla but admits mistake on China

Dividend paid through capital reserves

In the annual report the managers of the £13.9bn Scottish Mortgage trust stood by their holding in Tesla, but admitted they had made a “mistake” by not selling down Chinese online companies.

At the beginning of the report, which covers the 12 month period till the end of March, the chair called for "caution against drawing any meaningful conclusions" around the performance of the trust. For the period in question the NAV fell 13.1% and its share price dropped 9.5%. Since then the share price has since plummeted much further, down 43.1% since the beginning of the year. Part of this drop is because of the company's second largest holding, Tesla, which made up 6.6% of the portfolio at the end of March. Tesla's share price has fallen 42.6% so far this year. While the managers...