Bankers Investment Trust lifts dividend as NAV rises

Bankers Investment Trust raised its full year dividend 6.8% as it posted a net asset value increase of 5.7% for the year ended 31 October 2015.

The dividend was lifted to 15.8p per share, beating the company’s forecast last year of a 4% jump and marking the 49th consecutive year of dividend increases.

Meanwhile, net asset value rose to 630.2p over the year, and earnings per share for the period came in at 17.22p compared with 15.05p the previous year.

Chairman Richard Killingbeck said: “This is an excellent result for shareholders and reflects the disciplined focus of the investment team in regard to stock selection and upon medium to longer term investment themes and trends.”

The company said it continues to shift its allocation away from the domestic UK equity market, increasing its overseas equity exposure, particularly towards North America and Japan.

It said overseas markets enable the group to gain greater exposure to higher growth sectors and to global companies within these sectors.

“As these companies grow their earnings we expect their dividend growth potential to be equal or greater than that to be achieved from our UK equity portfolio,” said Killingbeck.

Bankers Investment said the policy shift should result in UK equity market exposure settling at around 30% in the forthcoming year.

At 1445 GMT, shares in the trust were up 0.4% to 583.46p.