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Contrarian approach begins to reap rewards

The Scottish Investment Trust (SCIN), founded in 1887, is a self-managed global equity investment trust. It has recently taken steps to modernise and streamline its operations, and in October 2015 put in place a focused, contrarian investment process under a new management team. It aims to exploit the behavioural biases of market participants by identifying three types of company: the very out-of-favour; those where improvements have not been appreciated by the consensus; and good companies that could still do better. Recent performance has been strong, but the discount remains wider than average, perhaps reflecting a lack of awareness of the process and team changes. In H215 the trust repaid some of its long-term borrowings, further reducing costs; it now has one of the lowest expense ratios in its peer group, as well as a 34-year track record of dividend growth.