Investment trusts: Creating engaging content as trusts battle wide discounts

Need:

It’s a troubling time for the UK’s investment trusts. The share prices of these London Stock Exchange-listed funds often slip to discounts to the value of their underlying asset portfolios. In early 2025, discounts were averaging a high 14%, according to The Association of Investment Companies. How then can the boards of investment trusts stimulate demand for their shares? Partly through better communications with shareholders, which requires regular content writing describing the purpose and advantages of these investment vehicles.

Approach:

For investment trust content to make a difference, it needs to attract, inform and engage. It must show how trusts deliver positive long-term investment returns for retail investors. For a number of investment trusts, we have developed calendars of articles and then written them with particular attention to providing a light touch with catchy headlines.

Outcome:

It’s too early to tell if investment trust discounts will narrow and it would be wrong to suggest that communications alone will narrow the gap. However, with fierce competition from low-cost exchange traded funds, investment trusts have little choice but to step up their marketing to stimulate demand for their shares. In our view, well-written, thoughtful content can play an important part.