Investment Trust Awards 2009

Signup for a 3 issue trial to Money Observer magazine for only £1, and you'll be able to download out Investment Trust Awards 2009 instantly, free!

To decide the winners in our sector awards, we assess a contender's total returns in each of the past three years and then adjust those returns to give a greater weighting to the most recent years, as these will be more relevant to the future. Pride of place goes to trusts that have achieved above-average returns in each of the past three years (shown in bold text in the tables), which puts the emphasis on trusts that can do well in varied conditions.

The past three years have been exceptionally testing for investors. The bull market in equities topped out in late 2007, but recovered strongly in the first half of 2008. But last September almost every region and asset class suffered a massive heart attack following the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers.

In this hostile environment investment trusts with gearing (borrowing with the aim of generating higher returns from investments than the cost of the loan) have had a torrid time. And when investors fled to safer havens trusts with a penchant for risky sectors, such as emerging markets, were hammered. Meanwhile, specialist sectors such as private equity and property have experienced a seminal setback.

On the positive side, investment trusts with overseas exposure benefited from sterling depreciation in 2008. Unlike many open-ended investment companies and unit trusts, they did not have to offload their best holdings to meet redemptions because they are close-ended vehicles with a fixed capital structure.

If you'd like to know which investment trusts have had consistently superior performance over the past 3 years, signup for a Money Observer 3 issue for £1 trial now!