SOI : Scottish Oriental Income lags benchmark marginally
Schroder Oriental Income’s results for the year ended 31 August 2014 have been published this morning. It just failed to match the return on its benchmark index, the MSCI All Countries Pacific ex Japan, delivering a total return of 10.9% for the period vs. the index’s 11.3%. The revenue generated by the fund fell year on year (hit by the strength of Sterling) but the Board have still managed to declare increased dividends for the year (full year total 7.65p vs. 7.45p last year) that are covered by earnings.
Strangely the manager’s report makes no reference to individual stocks within the portfolio so it is hard to know what worked and what didn’t. They do say the key positive factors were stock selection in Australia (benefiting from continued caution on the mining sector), Korea and Singapore. On the negative side they highlight stock selection shortfalls in New Zealand, Taiwan (especially telecom stocks) and Hong Kong.