Lazard World Trust Fund Edison issues update on Lazard World Trust Fund

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Lazard World Trust Fund

14 September 2017

London, UK, 14 September 2017

Edison issues update on Lazard World Trust Fund (WTR)

Lazard World Trust Fund (WTR, formerly The World Trust Fund) offers investors access to a concentrated portfolio of the 'best ideas' of Lazard Asset Management's Discounted Assets team, who manage more than $5bn of assets invested globally in undervalued companies, such as closed-end funds, investment trusts and holding companies that are trading at a discount to the value of their assets. Following a number of changes in 2016, the fund now pays a distribution of 3.5% of year-end NAV, making it the highest-yielding fund in its peer group, and, as requested by shareholders, has a new benchmark (MSCI AC World ex-US rather than the US-heavy MSCI AC World) that better reflects its international focus and high weighting in emerging markets. Recent performance has been strong, and the manager sees many exciting opportunities in areas such as China, India, Vietnam, Brazil, Romania, and smaller companies in the US and Europe. The fund can also hedge equity and currency exposures.

At 12 September 2017, WTR's shares traded at a 5.2% discount to net asset value. This is narrower than both short- and longer-term averages of c 12-13%, and is close to the five-year low of 4.5% reached on 8 September 2017. Applying this discount to the average discount of the underlying holdings (23.5% at 31 July 2017) gives a combined discount of 27.5%, implying that each GBP1 invested in WTR buys exposure to GBP1.38 of assets. Under the new distribution policy WTR has the highest dividend yield in its peer group, with a prospective yield of 3.5%.

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September 14, 2017 10:55 ET (14:55 GMT)