Returns hit at troubled giant Trust

ALLIANCE Trust was hit hard by market turmoil around the Brexit referendum.

Wild swings in stocks and the price of the pound meant the investment firm generated 9.5pc returns on stocks in the first six months of the year – compared to 12pc in the benchmark it uses to judge performance.

The company’s holdings in finance firms such as Prudential and Legal & General suffered amid a wider selloff as traders rushed for safety.

Financial companies tend to be hard-hit if the economy appears to be on the rocks as they are judged to suffer the most during a downturn.

Alliance’s reversal of fortune came in June as the EU referendum came and went. Before this point, the company said, it had been doing better than rivals.

It has been going through a restructuring since activist US shareholder Elliott Management Corporation stepped in to boost the amount of money it made.

Alliance’s then-chairman Karin Forseke and chief executive Katherine Garrett-Cox both quit in the wake of the row.

In May, Alliance was approached about a merger by blue-blood banker Jacob Rothschild’s firm RIT Capital Partners but the plans were withdrawn a week later.

A restructuring programme has cut costs by 30pc to £7.7m.