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(Sharecast News) - F&C Investment Trust hailed the performance of its investments in AI over the first half, which helped drive a 12.4% total investment return for the FTSE 100 trust, while its chairman Beatrice Holland announced her resignation.
The trust said there were "spectacular returns from many semiconductor stocks" during the first six months of the year, with several of its holdings more than doubling and some names trebling over the period.
"The scale of such moves may not be unprecedented but is certainly highly unusual and, while holding such stocks proved accretive to returns, a lack of exposure to some of them did prove costly (against the benchmark return) for some of our strategies," said Holland in a statement.
Net asset value total return was 12.4% for the six months to 30 June, with NAV rising to 375.18p from 335.84p at the end of 2025, slightly behind the 12.6% return from the benchmark FTSE All-World Index.
Notably, F&C's portfolio in North America - where it has been "modestly reducing exposure" in recent years to US large cap growth stocks in particular - gained 10.8% in value, slightly behind the benchmark (+11.2%), and investments in Japan (+11.6%) lagged their benchmark (+16.9%).
Separately, the firm announced that Holland has now been replaced as chair by boardmember James Williams.
"I will have served as a director for nine years in September and therefore, in accordance with current best practice, I will stand down from the Board on 31 July, the date of this report. [...] I know I will be leaving your company in very capable hands," Holland said.
The stock was up 0.7% at 333.63p by 1133 BST.
See the latest RNS on Investegate.
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