As luck would have it, the Association of Investment Companies published its latest list of “dividend heroes”, those companies that have increased their dividends for 20 years or more, yesterday. One was Witan Investment Trust, just three days after its latest results showed an 11.8 per cent rise to 19p a share.
This was the 42nd consecutive year of dividend increases, a rare achievement even in the investment trust world. Witan — the name refers to the “wise men” who advised the monarch in Anglo-Saxon times — is a little different from the average trust. For the past 12 years it has used about a dozen external fund managers to pick most of its investments, firing one each year or so to encourage the others.