To follow on from my last blog post, another interesting press release from the AIC today was that on the performance of Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs). That’s particularly so when everyone is considering their tax bills at this time of year, i.e. those just paid and how they can avoid such big ones for the current year and next.
VCTs do of course offer upfront income tax relief when investing in new shares, and also tax free dividends thereafter. Many have been achieving high dividend yields in recent years. The AIC notes that the VCT sector “as a whole is up 82% by share price total return over the last decade”. In addition the top 20 VCTs are up an average of 141% over the last 10 years and have paid our an average total tax free dividend of 87 pence per share. The press release tells you which have been the top performing VCTs and when buying shares in these trusts it’s probably best to go for those who have demonstrated good long term performance as running these funds is not easy and proven experience is what seems to count. AIC press releases are given here: http://www.theaic.co.uk/aic/news/press-releases
Needless to say perhaps that Foresight VCT, which ShareSoc recently commented on, does not get a mention as it’s not in the top 20.
The AIC does of course give you comparative historic performance data on most investment trusts including VCTs on their web site.
Roger Lawson
Hi Roger
for some reason the link to the AIC press release doe not work
Works for me – suggest try again. Roger Lawson