THE ALLIANCE Trust saw its net assets grow by a record amount last year, it was announced yesterday.

The Dundee-based company yesterday released its final results for the year to January 31 and said a dividend of 73.5p per share had been set—up for the 39th consecutive year.

During the year net asset value rose 24.6% to £2.0bn and total shareholder return achieved 30.6%.

Capital growth for the year was £395.5m, against £146.7m in 2004.

Chief executive Alan Harden said yesterday that Alliance Trust had delivered “strong investment performance” during the year, growing net assets by £402m.

“This reflects our focus on performance and our decision to reorganise our equity investment process on to a geographic basis,” he said.

“Equities remain our key area of focus and as at year end, six out of the seven regional portfolios, representing 95% of the equity portfolio, have outperformed their benchmarks.”

During 2005, Alliance Trust opened an office in Hong Kong and the portfolios managed from that office were among the best performing, with a gain of 36% against the local benchmark’s gain of 32.4% for the Asia- Pacific portfolio and a 51.6% increment for the Japan portfolio against a 41.4% rise in the local benchmark.

The company is building upon its expertise in this area by establishing a company which will operate out of the Hong Kong office and will take third-party mandates.

By leveraging existing expertise, Alliance Trust is seeking to generate additional returns for shareholders.

“Our equity portfolio has had an outstanding year, especially in the Japanese and UK Smaller Cap portfolios,” head of equities Grant Lindsay said.

“We benefited from moving capital away from North America and from overweight positions in oil and mining stocks.

“Looking forward, we expect growth to continue and equity markets to remain positive, although oil and terrorism risks will persist and there will be pressures from rising interest rates outside the UK.”

As part of its focus on investment performance, Alliance Trust can move between equities and other assets.

This year, Alliance Trust invested £20.8m in real estate. This marks the beginning of a specialisation that will be added to as opportunities arise.

Alliance Trust increased its investment in its financial services subsidiary Alliance Trust Savings, which purchased in October 2005 Wolanski & Co Trustees Ltd, one of the leading SIPP and SSAS administrators in the market.

Hyman Wolanksi has joined as head of pensions in Alliance Trust Savings, which now administers customer assets of around £3.3bn with approximately 39,000 customers and is ranked as one of the top five SIPP providers in the UK by plans administered.

Mr Harden said, “Pensions ‘A’ Day is now just a short time away and this provides a tremendous opportunity in both the individual pensions market and in the corporate SIPP and employer-pensions market.”

Alliance Trust said last year’s performance reflected “the strong performance across the portfolio.”