Witan Pacific Investment Trust, the Asia-Pacific (including Japan) investment fund has reported another year of strong absolute returns in its final results for the year ended 31 January 2011, coupled with outperformance of over 5% relative to its benchmark¹.

The Trust’s NAV total return for the period was 25.8% compared to the benchmark which returned 20.0%, sterling adjusted. The total shareholder return was 30% which reflects a narrowing of the discount during the year. A final dividend of 2.8p per share has been declared which represents an increase of 33% on the previous year. The Company has also adopted a new policy which aims to grow the dividend in real terms, reflecting the expected growth prospects for payouts in the region.

Now in its sixth year, the Trust’s multi-manager strategy has delivered an average portfolio investment outperformance of 2.3% per annum². The two underlying managers, Aberdeen Asset Managers and Nomura Asset Management, offer distinct yet complementary investment styles. This approach aims to smooth out the volatility of returns. Each manages approximately half the portfolio, investing in the entire Asian region, including Japan. During the year, both managers had a preference for the Asian economies, leading to an underweight position in Japan which assisted performance since the rest of the region performed more strongly.

Aberdeen have for many years maintained a strong preference for the Asian markets over Japan, holding a more aggressively underweight position in Japan and managing a more concentrated list of holdings overall. Their portfolio return was 28.7%, an outperformance of 8.7% over the Index. Nomura take a more index-like position, again preferring the growth characteristics of Asian markets over Japan but with a far less marked degree of over and under weighting. This helped to generate a performance for their portfolio of 24.1%, 4.1% ahead of the benchmark.

Gillian Nott, Chairman of the Witan Pacific Investment Trust Board said:

“Economic growth in the Pacific region remained strong throughout the year, however towards the period end, there were increasing signs that authorities were becoming concerned about inflationary pressures. These arose mainly due to rising commodity prices, and began to create political problems owing to the high importance of food and energy in the local cost of living. The resulting tightening in monetary policy, which was designed to reduce inflation, saw some of the region’s earlier outperformance of developed markets reduced. By contrast, Japan’s stock market performance improved towards the period end as the global growth outlook improved and, unlike the rest of Asia, there were no significant pressures to raise interest rates.

Since our year end, Japan has been struck by the loss of life and destruction caused by the Tohoku earthquake. Our sympathies go to the Japanese people in the aftermath of this catastrophe. Yet, despite the immediate humanitarian tragedy and disruption to the economy, it is expected that economic growth will start to recover later in the year, as reconstruction gets underway.

By holding shares in Witan Pacific, shareholders have been able to participate in the Far East’s good relative equity returns, without the risk of being caught on the wrong side of the fluctuating relative fortunes within the region. We will continue to review the appropriate balance of investment styles and geographical exposure to deliver benefits for our shareholders from what we believe to be the Asia-Pacific region’s enduring growth story.”

For further information visit www.witanpacific.com

¹ MSCI AC Asia Pacific Free Index (£)

² Source: WM Performance Measurement Services.

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For further information please contact:

Andrew Bell

Witan Investment Services Limited

Tel: 020 7227 9770

Andrew.bell@witan.co.uk

James Frost

Witan Investment Services Limited

Tel: 020 7227 9770

James.frost@witan.co.uk

Jain Castiau

Cauldron Consulting

Tel: 0203178 7236/07909 963 969

Jain.castiau@cauldron-consulting.com

Notes to Editors

Witan Pacific Investment Trust plc

Witan Pacific Investment Trust is an Asia-Pacific including Japan Trust with assets of £170m (Source: AIC as at 31.01.2011). The Trust moved to a multi-manager structure on 27 May 2005 with Witan Investment Services as Executive Manager. The Trust’s benchmark is MSCI AC Asia Pacific Free Index (£).

Witan Investment Services Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Witan Investment Trust plc. 

Witan Pacific Investment Trust plc is registered as an Investment Company in England No 91798.

Manager Breakdown as at 31st January 2011

Manager and Trust geographical analysis % as at 31st January 2011