Edinburgh Investment Trust (EDIN)

Edinburgh Investment Trust (EDIN) delivered a strong set of income numbers in its latest annual results for the year to March 2026. Amid market volatility, the trust’s full-year Dividend grew 11%, on the prior year, to 32.0p per share, outpacing UK CPI of 3.3%, supported by revenue earnings climbing 6.6%. Whilst this did not fully cover the dividend, EDIN benefits from healthy revenue reserves of 1.1× the last annual dividend alongside a much larger distributable capital reserve. EDIN's current 4.1% yield sits ahead of both the UK equity income sector average and the broader UK market.

A key support of that dividend growth has come from the investment process underpinning the Portfolio. Lead manager Imran Sattar runs a bottom-up, total return process, seeking businesses with durable competitive advantages, pricing power and strong cash generation, with dividend growth an expression of underlying quality rather than a deliberate yield hunt. He places no fixed allegiance to any single style, adapting as markets evolve and opportunities shift. That flexibility is evident over the past 12 months, with changes including reducing the trust's underweight in banks, adding to UK construction recovery plays and building positions in derated data and analytics names. Imran views these as long-term AI beneficiaries rather than the current casualties the market has characterised.

It has been a difficult 12 months in Performance terms. NAV and share price total returns of 4.0% and 2.5%, respectively, lagged the FTSE All-Share's 20.7%. This period of performance has weighed on longer-term numbers, with EDIN now behind its index by around six percentage points over five years, though it remains ahead under Liontrust's full tenure since March 2020. At the time of writing, EDIN trades at an 8.0% discount, within its five-year average of 8.4%.