Ground rent fund the Freehold Income Trust has delivered a total return of 6.02% for the year ending 30 March.
The value of the trust’s portfolio rose by 1.8% to £151.7m over the year. The portfolio comprises 64,000 freehold ground rents, each generating an annual rent of £121.
Nigel Ashfield, managing director of TIME Investments, which runs the fund, said: “In the last five years, extraordinary turbulence has been experienced in global investment markets, and at the end of March this year, the FTSE 100 index was 16.8% below the high point it reached in December 1999. In contrast to this, the Freehold Income Trust delivered a total return of 136% over the same period.
“The trust’s performance is generally not correlated to the performance of the commercial or residential property sectors, where values have declined. Instead, freehold ground rents, valued on very secure income and potential for growth, are more akin to a fixed-income investment except that most freehold ground rents have periodic rent reviews with many linked inflation uplifts. The trust continues to provide a valuable safe haven in the uncertain times ahead.”
sophia.furber@estatesgazette.com
