Analyst research note

Kepler Trust Intelligence: Analyst's View

"In our view, ATST remains a strong ‘fire and forget’ option for investors looking to gain a broad exposure to global equity markets. The managers’ style-balanced approach has delivered strong returns over what has been a volatile period, which we believe highlights the potential merits of taking a factor-neutral approach and focusing on stock picking instead of reading the tea leaves.

The addition of the Dalton Investments team in Japan is interesting, and provides shareholders with the potential to benefit from the revolution in corporate governance which has contributed to Japan becoming a popular pick amongst active managers this year. In our view, the strategy of focusing on corporate change to deliver returns offers the potential to generate attractive returns even in a troubled economic outlook.

We note the board is in a strong position to continue its track record of rising the dividend each year, a bumper year for earnings having led to a very healthy reserve position. With a yield of around 2.4% at the time of writing the trust is edging closer to contributing a meaningful amount of income, while the compounding effect of reinvesting the dividend offers an attractive way to invest for the long term."