Alliance Witan NAV total return underperforms benchmark as discount narrows

‘Not owning enough Nvidia was painful’

Alliance Witan’s net asset value (NAV) total return stood at 13.3% for the year ended 31 December 2024, trailing its MSCI All Country World benchmark, which returned 19.6% during the same period.

In its annual results today (7 March), the trust attributed its underperformance to a lack of "exposure to the small number of very large companies that dominated market returns, especially in the US", according to Dean Buckley, chair of Alliance Witan. The trust's investment managers, Craig Baker, Stuart Gray and Mark Davis, also noted that the benchmark, which returned 19.6% in 2024 and 15.3% in 2023, stood in stark contrast with its average return figure of 8.4% per annum since 1987, meaning "returns of this magnitude in two consecutive years are rare". Alliance Witan chair Dean Bu...