Aberdeen Standard Equity Income Trust

Optimism based on attractive valuations

7 February 2019

Aberdeen Standard Equity Income Trust (ASEI, formerly Standard Life Equity Income Trust [SLET]) has been managed by Thomas Moore since November 2011. He is bullish on the long-term outlook for the trust as the yield on the portfolio is the highest since the end of the global financial crisis in 2009, suggesting UK share prices are discounting a recession or another global crisis. The manager says that ASEI’s holdings – chosen from across the market cap spectrum – can be classified in one of three ‘buckets’: global yield (c 40% of the portfolio), domestic opportunities (c 30%) and uncorrelated value (c 30%), and he is finding good opportunities in all three. The trust’s revenue was higher than projected in FY18, leading to an annual dividend increase of 12.3%, which was much higher than the 7.5% compound annual growth rate over the last five years. MORE »