JPMorgan Global Growth & Income

JPMorgan Global Growth and Income (JGGI) aims to provide investors with a high-conviction, benchmark-agnostic portfolio capable of delivering strong total returns across the market cycle. As discussed in Performance, the managers’ stock-specific, bottom-up approach to investing has generated alpha over the short and long term, outperforming the MSCI ACWI by 25% and 5.2% over five years and 12 months respectively, as at 26/09/2023.

JGGI is managed by Helge Skibeli, Tim Woodhouse, and James Cook. As discussed in Portfolio, they have the luxury of being able to access the breadth and depth of JPMorgan’s internationally diverse research engine across global equities. The strategy has historically had a growth tilt which has enhanced the trust’s ability to generate capital growth. The dividend policy gives the managers the freedom to invest this way as it allows the board to pay dividends from capital. The policy is to pay out an annual dividend of 4% of the financial year-end NAV (see Dividend).

However, the elevated levels of uncertainty and volatility in the markets over the last couple of years have led the managers to take a more balanced approach to portfolio management with the aim of neutralising the trust’s beta and dampening the trust growth style exposure to markets. This is also reflected in the managers’ more cautious approach to Gearing.

The mergers with Scottish Investment Trust (SCIN) and JPMorgan Elect in 2022, led to significant growth in the trust’s net assets. This has reduced Charges and the trust now trades at a premium of 1.8%, in line with its five-year average of 1.8% (see Discount).