There are no special privileges attached to being one of the world’s oldest investment vehicles. Indeed, even being named as one of the most popular investment trusts among retail investors comes with its own pressures, making it even more important, for example, that performance is consistently strong enough to justify such faith. None of which is news to the City of London Investment Trust.
Based on its most recent set of half-year figures, the trust outperformed its benchmark, the FTSE All-Share index, over the six months to the end of December. It has to be said, though, that it didn’t do so by much.
The investment trust started life as a brewery in 1860, changing its status in 1932 when the brewery and some pubs