Trustnet Magazine 57 December 2019 | Page 20

Your portfolio 20 / 21 [ TRUSTS REVIEW ] Rebecca Jones says proponents of investment trusts were vindicated this year, in her review of the closed-ended sector in 2019 A question of trust I t may seem odd to talk about investment trusts coming of age, when the first one was launched more than 150 years ago. In 2019, however, even the most inexperienced investor was able to see the benefits of using a structure that isn’t a slave to fund flows. The major story in the IA universe this year was the gating, and ultimate closure, of the Woodford Equity Income fund on liquidity concerns. Manager Neil Woodford’s attempts to run a multi-billion pound open-ended strategy filled with illiquid positions ended in disaster when a tide of outflows, combined with an inflexible TRUSTNET trustnet.com