Annual Financial Report

RNS Number : 9254S

JPMorgan Emerging Mkts Invest Trust

06 October 2017

 

LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE ANNOUNCEMENT

JPMORGAN EMERGING MARKETS INVESTMENT TRUST PLC

(the 'Company')

FINAL RESULTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH JUNE 2017

Legal Entity Identifier: 5493001VPQDYH1SSSR77

Information disclosed in accordance with the DTR 4.1.3

The Directors announce the Company's results for the year ended 30th June 2017.

CHAIRMAN'S STATEMENT

Performance

The year to 30th June 2017 was another positive one for investors in emerging markets, with the Company's benchmark index, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index with net dividends reinvested, in sterling terms, returning +27.4%. The return to shareholders was in line with the benchmark at +27.3%, reflecting a narrowing of the discount from 13.2% to 10.5% over the year. The Company's return on net assets, whilst positive in absolute terms, was behind the benchmark at +23.4%.

The Investment Manager's Report which follows provides more detail on the Company's performance. Emerging markets performed well in local currency terms but continuing sterling weakness helped to boost returns to sterling investors. Stock selection was also a positive factor over the year, whilst asset allocation, which measures the impact of allocating assets differently to those in the benchmark by country/regionally, was negative.

It is always disappointing to report a period of short term underperformance but this will happen with active investment managers from time to time. The Company's long term performance record remains excellent; the Company is well ahead of the benchmark over three, five and ten years.

Revenue and Dividends

I would remind shareholders that, with effect from 1st July 2015, 70% of the Company's management fees and finance expenses have been charged to capital and 30% to revenue. Previous practice was to charge 100% to the revenue account. This change increases the potential for dividend increases over time, but dividends will still fluctuate in line with underlying earnings. Partly because of this accounting change, the revenue return per share has increased in the past two financial years. In addition, the impact of sterling depreciation following the EU referendum has boosted earnings per share, allowing us to increase the dividend by 22%, in line with our commitment to increase the dividend over time, in line with earnings. On the revised basis, the revenue return per share for the year was 12.75 pence (2016: 9.49 pence). The Board proposes to increase the dividend from 9.0p to 11.0p this year. This is subject to shareholder approval at the forthcoming Annual General Meeting.

Discount and Share Repurchases

We continue to monitor closely the share price and therefore the discount of our share price to the net asset value. The share price rose 25.7% over the year, from 635.0p to 798.5p at the year end. The discount ranged between 9.6% and 14.4%, averaging 12.4% through the year.

The Board's policy on discount management remains unchanged - it is prepared to take action to try to ensure that the discount does not exceed 10% for an extended period, but only if the discount is out of line with our peer group and market conditions are orderly. During the year, we increased the amount of stock bought back in an attempt to reduce the discount, achieving some success in that the discount closed at 10.5%. Accordingly, the Company repurchased a total of 2,204,765 shares into Treasury at an average discount of 12.5%.

The Board

I will retire from the Board at the conclusion of the forthcoming AGM and Sarah Arkle will succeed me as Chairman of your Board. As I said in my half year statement, I am sure she will prove to be an excellent choice.

Anatole Kaletsky, the Company's Senior Independent Director, has indicated his intention to step down at the conclusion of the 2018 AGM. Therefore, in order to ensure appropriate succession planning and continuity, the Board will look to recruit a new Director early in 2018.

The Manager

The Board monitors the performance of our Manager through the Management Engagement Committee. Whilst last year's performance was behind the benchmark index, the Board judges performance over the longer term and in this respect, the excellent long term record remains intact. Thus we remain satisfied with the Manager's overall performance, not only in terms of investment performance but also in terms of risk management, administration, controls and compliance, where we continue to be well served.

Continuation Vote

As shareholders will be aware, every three years the Company offers shareholders a Continuation Vote to determine whether the Company should continue in existence. Shareholders will be asked to vote on this in a resolution at the forthcoming AGM in November. The Board believes strongly that the Company should continue and it urges shareholders to support the Company by voting in favour of the Company's continuation.

AGM

This year's AGM will be held at JPMorgan's office at 60 Victoria Embankment, London EC4Y 0JP on Friday 24th November 2017 at 3.00 p.m. Austin Forey will give a presentation to shareholders, reviewing the past year and giving his view on the outlook for emerging markets for the current year. The meeting will be followed by afternoon tea, which will provide shareholders with the opportunity to meet the Directors and the Investment Manager. We look forward to seeing as many shareholders as possible at the AGM.

Conclusion

It has been an honour to have served as your Chairman for the past eight years. I leave behind a strong Board and an exceptionally able investment management team, led by Austin Forey. It is good to see emerging markets returning to favour and the last two years have seen some exceptional returns. Prospects remain favourable, though doubtless there will be periods of volatility. The focus on high quality companies with strong growth prospects should ensure continued long term outperformance making your Company an excellent investment vehicle to gain exposure to the emerging markets growth story.

Alan Saunders

Chairman                                                                                                                                       

6th October 2017

INVESTMENT MANAGER'S REPORT

Results

This was a good year for shareholders in terms of absolute returns, but not a vintage one as far as the manager' s relative performance was concerned. While the Company's NAV per share was up by over 23%, the index did still better, rising by 27%. Readers will be pleased to note that the return to shareholders, which takes into account the change in the share price and the dividend, was also 27%, more or less matching index return, because the discount between the share price and net asset value narrowed somewhat over the year.

From my perspective as manager of the portfolio, the outcome of the last year has not been a huge surprise. It was in anticipation of exactly this kind of year that I wrote in my last annual review about what shareholders should expect from us as managers of the Company's assets. We know that we will not beat the index every year and experience tells us that we will find it harder to do so in periods when the absolute returns are strongly positive, because lower quality companies tend to do better during cyclical upturns; those are exactly the conditions we have seen during the last financial year, notably in markets like Korea, where the Company's lack of exposure has been a drag on performance. Experience also tells us that we are more likely to achieve good results in the long run by thinking about investment decisions on a long term basis too and so, undeterred by this last year, we will continue to do so. While this may sound like stubbornness, I hope that it will not be viewed as such by shareholders. It would be wonderful to outperform our benchmark every year; but constructing an investment approach specifically to achieve that would almost certainly ensure that it did not happen. Short term fluctuations in relative performance are the price of achieving better results in the long term; in my opinion, it's a trade-off which is still worthwhile.

The past year

The year has been notable for the lack of real crises in emerging markets: only Egypt and Nigeria suffered major currency devaluations. There were no banking crises, commodity prices did not halve or double. Instead, it was a period in which most of the headlines were made by political developments. Returns for sterling-based investors who owned assets overseas (as your Company does) were boosted by the weakness of the pound following the referendum on membership of the European Union, and no sooner had that political earthquake started to subside than markets had to deal with the unforeseen result of the presidential election in the United States. In emerging markets politics also took some unexpected turns. The Brazilian president was impeached in the wake of a huge corruption scandal which threatened to ensnare many of the country's senior politicians; this coincided with a severe economic downturn. Elsewhere, we saw political crackdowns in Turkey which are hard to interpret positively, and continued tensions within the ruling party in South Africa which culminated, for the second time in two years, in the firing of the Finance Minister. Politicians, it seems, find it very hard to leave things alone.

Yet in spite of this, equity markets have marched to new highs in many countries. Perhaps the influence of political decisions is not as great as we might fear; perhaps underlying economic trends were such that it would have happened anyway. We can explain a lot of the general direction of markets by the continuation of low inflation and very low interest rates, combined with a gradual recovery in European economies and continued strength in the US corporate sector. Most relevant for the Company, a somewhat weaker dollar and an upturn in corporate earnings in emerging markets have come at a time when overall valuations in the asset class were starting from below-average levels; that is a combination that should lead to rising share prices, and it has done.

Even so, it has not been a wholly smooth ride. In India, which has long been one of preferred destinations for the Company's investments, the startling decision last November to 'demonetise' the economy (an almost unbelievably well-kept secret) caused a sudden contraction in economic activity, which is hardly surprising since it involved the cancellation of a large percentage of the cash in circulation. The equity market reacted in tandem. Yet despite the short term squeeze that resulted, this seems a rational move in the long term as it should drive more of the economy into the formal financial system and thus increase tax collection, reduce corruption and lower intermediation costs in general. Within a few months, economic activity was recovering and the decline in the Indian equity market which followed the initial announcement has also proved short-lived. For the strongest companies, such periods of challenging conditions often present opportunities to extend their lead over competitors - a pattern that we saw repeated in parts of the Indian market on this occasion.

The portfolio

As can be seen from the more detailed information in the annual report, we have made few significant changes to the Company's investments during the past year. Overall we changed just under a tenth of the portfolio. While we made sales in a variety of countries, we only added to the Company's holdings in one: China. We increased some existing investment holdings, but the majority of the addition was accounted for by the purchase of two new investments, Alibaba and Ping An Insurance, both of which are now among the top ten holdings in the portfolio by value. So far, I am pleased to report, the value of both these holdings is comfortably above our purchase cost.

As a result of this activity, China now rivals India as one of the most important investment destinations for us. This is a big change from the past and one that may surprise you. For many years, I have talked about how we have struggled to find many attractive investments in China; the pool of accessible investments, all of them listed in Hong Kong or further afield, was dominated by large state-owned firms in mature and capital-intensive industries which we did not find appealing. State-owned companies all over the world usually serve their masters in government, whose objectives may understandably diverge significantly from ours, and this is particularly the case in China. Meanwhile those companies from the private sector that were listed were often immature and plagued by poor corporate governance, or simply obsessed with growing market share without much regard to returns for shareholders. So China was a frustrating and not very fruitful destination in our search for investments. But the set of opportunities in China that meet our criteria is evolving significantly because of two important changes, both of them relatively recent; the rise of the country's importance in the overall portfolio reflects these developments .

The first one is the listing in Hong Kong and the USA of highly successful Chinese companies in the so-called 'new economy', especially firms in the internet services sector, of which Alibaba is one of the best examples. Readers may be familiar with this company, which is an e-commerce giant in China whose gross sales are significantly larger than Amazon's. Like Amazon, it is a company built on technology in the internet age. Together with Tencent, another dominant company in China and also a significant investment in the portfolio, Alibaba shares some characteristics with better-known American companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google, which have emerged over the last decade to become some of the world's most valuable businesses; it is disruptive, innovative and highly competitive and is enjoying strong growth as a result. In most respects Alibaba and Tencent are the antithesis of the state-owned Chinese enterprises that we have largely shunned over the last two decades. Moreover, theirs is an entirely private sector industry because it has developed only recently and so it operates with the normal commercial objectives that you would find in other countries.

The second development, which I anticipate will bring more change to your portfolio in the future, is the opening of the domestic 'A' share market to foreign capital. Before this, China's large domestic stock markets were not really accessible at all for investors from outside China. Now we can invest, via a scheme which allows us to trade through Hong Kong, in many companies which are listed on the local stock exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzhen. This is interesting because many of China's most competitive manufacturing companies are listed there, and this is also where we find the most prominent businesses which focus on the domestic consumer. This change in the investment landscape brings both challenges and opportunities for us. On the one hand, there are hundreds more companies to look at, and therefore more chances of finding something appealing; on the other hand, the job of sifting the wheat from the chaff increases. But we are fortunate to have the resources of a large organisation to draw on, and we have enlarged our research team specifically to cover this new ground in China; you should expect that the best of the companies they find there will feature in the portfolio in the future.

The future: staying relevant

There are two things that I think about a lot when I consider what I should be doing with the Company's portfolio. The first, which is a natural preoccupation for anyone taking a long term approach, is whether the companies we own which have been competitive in the past can remain competitive in the future, and whether they can keep producing good returns for shareholders. The second is whether the Company itself is remaining competitive and whether I can in some way improve what we do for shareholders, or whether I need to change something to respond to a changing landscape.

How do we address the first issue? We have two types of response. The first is simply to spend a lot of time thinking about it. We make consideration of duration a key part of our equity research process; all our analysts address this issue for every one of the 900 and more companies that we analyse and this means we pay particular attention to competitive advantage and whether it is growing or being eroded. We meet not only the companies that we invest in, but their competitors, their suppliers and their customers and we spend time with new entrants too, whether they are investable or not, in order to understand better how industries are evolving. In some industries, company life cycles are relatively short and it's rare to find businesses that can keep compounding in value; in others, it's easier. But the judgement is complicated, especially now, by a wave of technological innovation that has the potential to disrupt many industries very significantly. So where an industry is changing we need to be alert to what that may mean for established players. Finance is a good example: new technology has produced few serious challengers to established incumbents in emerging markets (and in my view is unlikely to do so), but we nevertheless see use of technology as a key competitive differentiator for existing players. Those that use it well to improve the customer experience and lower costs, like HDFC Bank in India or Ping An Insurance in China, are gaining market share; those that are not investing are losing out.

Our second response, which naturally follows from the first, is to concentrate the portfolio in areas where we can be confident that we can identify companies that will be competitive in the future. As a result, the portfolio is heavily invested on the one hand in industries where disruption is likely to be low (finance, consumer products) and on the other hand in the beneficiaries of disruption in other industries where incumbents are more vulnerable (technology, internet, retail). I think that if anything this will become more pronounced in the future; the companies we invest in have to stay relevant and we only want to own those that we think will do so.

If we think this way about the companies we invest in on your behalf, it is only logical that we should pose the same question to ourselves about what we do for the Company: what do we need to do to stay relevant?

Since my involvement in the management of the Company's portfolio started, we have never really changed our approach to managing the Company's investments, though I hope we have learnt to articulate it better over the years. We have deliberately enhanced some parts of our research activity, for example to make our consideration of environmental, social and governance issues more thorough and more explicit, but this is an enhancement of something we did already. And of course we have added very significantly to our team since the early days. Both of these are part of our answer to staying relevant; without the addition of colleagues with specific research expertise, for example, I would have been poorly placed to take opportunities as they have arisen in China; this will only become more important in the future.

We have also tried for many years to exploit some of the advantages of the closed-end fund structure, especially the lower level of liquidity required of a portfolio. Because closed-end funds do not have subscriptions and withdrawals on a daily basis, liquidity is required only on what we would call the asset side - in other words, only investment decisions on the portfolio create the need to buy and sell the Company's investment assets. This is different from open-ended funds, where in addition to the asset side, investments must be able to cope with liquidity required on the liability side - that is, to be able to invest new money subscribed into the fund and especially to meet redemptions when clients withdraw money. The practical result of this is that we have been prepared to take more risk on liquidity than we would otherwise do. We concentrated the top end of the portfolio further in our biggest positions and at the same time included smaller companies in the portfolio when we found what we thought were compelling opportunities. In general, this approach has been justified by results; some of the leading contributors to performance both in this past year, and in recent years, have come from exactly this kind of smaller company: I'm referring here to stocks like 51jobs (a Chinese online recruitment business), Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services (an Indian consumer credit company) and Globant (an Argentinian software developer). I think the ability to do this is a key competitive differentiator which continues to make investment trusts attractive vehicles for savers.

But while these aspects of our approach have remained constant, the industry has not stood still. Index funds, exchange-traded funds, a proliferation of benchmarks, ever greater analysis of technical risks: all these have become more and more prominent aspects of the investment industry. Against a changing landscape, what do we need to change to stay relevant?

The first thing to say is that we have to be as different as possible, both from the competition and especially from the benchmark; the index never beats itself, so we need to take strong views and express them with conviction in the portfolio. The ten largest investments account for almost 39% of the portfolio, while their combined representation in the index is less than 14%; I hope demonstrates that conviction that I refer to. Meanwhile, I have been reducing, at the margin, the number of companies that the Company owns. How far to take this is a matter for debate, but also of course a function of how many good investments we think we can find and indeed what kind of companies they are. Alibaba and Ping An are both very large businesses, with no practical restriction in terms of liquidity to limit our investment. The same is obviously not the case everywhere. Concentration of the portfolio brings more bang for the buck where successful ideas are found, but it also makes some ideas impractical because it raises the required size of investment. I might consider a Bangladeshi mortgage lender a very interesting small company, but if I cannot practically buy a meaningful amount of its shares, it remains an opportunity only in theory. So the trade-off between concentration and opportunity is an area in which we continue to look for ways to improve.

So maybe I can finish by reiterating a point I made last year: we are not going to run a portfolio that looks like the index and it will not perform like the index. In the long run I think this is essential if the Company is to remain relevant for its shareholders against the backdrop of an industry that is undergoing significant changes. If anything I think we need to keep emphasising this point more as time goes by and be prepared to back our opinions to a greater and greater extent, because we should always be trying to accentuate the benefits and indeed the value that active management can offer. That does not mean that we should stretch for ideas or claim conviction where we see only uncertainty; but where we have strong views, we want as much of the portfolio behind them as possible. In a world in which indices can be copied with very low costs, active management needs to be active; for us, that does not mean trading vigorously and handing your money to intermediaries in the process; it means seizing the best opportunities and maximising the results we can achieve from them.

Austin Forey

Investment Manager                                                                                                                      

6th October 2017

PRINCIPAL RISKS

The Directors confirm that they have carried out a robust assessment of the principal risks facing the Company, including those that would threaten its business model, future performance, solvency or liquidity.

With the assistance of the Manager, the Board has drawn up a risk matrix, which identifies the key risks to the Company. In assessing the risks and how they can be mitigated, the Board has given particular attention to those issues that threaten the viability of the Company. These key risks fall broadly under the following categories:

•      Investment Underperformance: An inappropriate investment strategy, for example asset allocation, the level of gearing or the degree of portfolio risk, could lead to underperformance against the Company's benchmark index and peer companies, resulting in the Company's shares trading on a wider discount. The Board manages these risks by diversification of investments and through a set of investment restrictions and guidelines which are monitored and reported on by the Manager. The Manager provides the Directors with timely and accurate management information, including performance data and attribution analyses, revenue estimates, liquidity reports and shareholder analyses. The Board monitors the implementation and results of the investment process with the Investment Manager, who attends all Board meetings, and reviews data which show statistical measures of the Company's risk profile.

•      Political and Economic: Administrative risks, such as the imposition of restrictions on the free movement of capital, significant changes to the benchmark index and therefore the investment universe and the underperformance of emerging markets as an asset class. These risks are discussed by the Board on a regular basis.

•      Loss of Investment Team or Investment Manager: A sudden departure of the investment manager or several members of the investment management team could result in a short-term deterioration in investment performance. The Manager takes steps to reduce the likelihood of such an event by ensuring appropriate succession planning and the adoption of a team based approach, as well as special efforts to retain key personnel.

•      Strategy/Business Management: An inappropriate corporate initiative, for example a takeover of another company or an issue of new capital; misuse of the investment trust structure, for example inappropriate gearing; or if the Company's business strategy is no longer appropriate, may lead to a lack of investor demand. The Board discusses these risks regularly and takes advice from the Manager and its professional advisers.

•      Share Price Discount: A disproportionate widening of the share price discount relative to the Company's peers could result in loss of value for shareholders. The Board regularly discusses discount policy and has set parameters for the Manager and the Company's broker to follow.

•      Change of Corporate Control of the Manager: The Board holds regular meetings with senior representatives of JPMF in order to obtain assurance that the Manager continues to demonstrate a high degree of commitment to its investment trusts business through the provision of significant resources.

•      Legal and Regulatory: In order to qualify as an investment trust, the Company must comply with Section 1158. Details of the Company's approval are given under 'Structure and Objective of the Company' on page 20. Should the Company breach Section 1158, it might lose investment trust status and, as a consequence, gains within the Company's portfolio would be subject to Capital Gains Tax. The Section 1158 qualification criteria are continually monitored by the Manager and the results reported to the Board each month. The Company must also comply with the provisions of the Companies Act 2006 and, since its shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange, the UKLA Listing Rules and Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules ('DTRs'). A breach of the Companies Act could result in the Company and/or the Directors being fined or the subject of criminal proceedings. Breach of the UKLA Listing Rules or DTRs could result in the Company's shares being suspended from listing which in turn would breach Section 1158. The Board relies on the services of its Company Secretary and its professional advisers to ensure compliance with the Companies Act and the UKLA Listing Rules and DTRs.

•      Corporate Governance and Shareholder Relations: Details of the Company's compliance with Corporate Governance best practice, including information on relations with shareholders, are set out in the Corporate Governance Statement in the annual report.

•      Operational and Cyber Crime: Loss of key staff by the Manager, such as the Investment Manager, could affect the performance of the Company. Disruption to, or failure of, the Manager's accounting, dealing or payments systems or the Depositary or Custodian's records may prevent accurate reporting and monitoring of the Company's financial position. Under the terms of its agreement, the Depositary has strict liability for the loss or misappropriation of assets held in custody. See note 21(c) in the annual report for further details on the responsibilities of the Depositary. Details of how the Board monitors the services provided by JPMF and its associates and the key elements designed to provide effective risk management and internal controls are included within the Risk Management and Internal Controls section of the Corporate Governance Statement in the annual report. The threat of cyber attack, in all its guises, is regarded as at least as important as more traditional physical threats to business continuity and security. The Board has received the cyber security policies for its key third party service providers and JPMF has assured Directors that the Company benefits directly or indirectly from all elements of JPMorgan's Cyber Security programme. The information technology controls around the physical security of JPMorgan's data centres, security of its networks and security of its trading applications are tested by Deloitte and reported every six months against the AAF Standard.

•      Financial: The financial risks faced by the Company include market price risk, interest rate risk and credit risk. Further details are disclosed in note 21 in the annual report.

RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS

During the financial year, no transactions with related parties have taken place which have materially affected the financial position or the performance of the Company during the year.

STATEMENT OF DIRECTORS' RESPONSIBILITIES

The Directors are responsible for preparing the Annual Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulation.

Company law requires the Directors to prepare financial statements for each financial year. Under that law the Directors have prepared the financial statements in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (United Kingdom Accounting Standards, comprising FRS 102 "The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland" and applicable law). Under company law the Directors must not approve the financial statements unless they are satisfied that they give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the Company and of the profit or loss of the Company for that period. In preparing the financial statements, the Directors are required to:

·        select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;

·        state whether applicable United Kingdom Accounting Standards, comprising FRS 102, have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements;

·        make judgements and accounting estimates that are reasonable and prudent; and

·        prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the Company will continue in business.

and the Directors confirm that they have done so.

The Directors are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that are sufficient to show and explain the Company's transactions and disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the Company and enable them to ensure that the financial statements and the Directors' Remuneration Report comply with the Companies Act 2006.

The Directors are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the Company and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

The Directors are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the Company's website. Legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

Under applicable law and regulations the Directors are also responsible for preparing a Strategic Report, a Directors' Report and Directors' Remuneration Report that comply with the law and those regulations.

Each of the Directors, whose names and functions are listed in Directors' Report confirm that, to the best of their knowledge:

·        the Company's financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (United Kingdom Accounting Standards, comprising FRS 102 "The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland", and applicable law), give a true and fair view of the assets, liabilities, financial position and profit of the Company; and

·        the Directors' Report includes a fair review of the development and performance of the business and the position of the Company, together with a description of the principal risks and uncertainties that it faces.

The Directors consider that the annual report and accounts, taken as a whole, is fair, balanced and understandable and provides the information necessary for shareholders to assess the Company's performance, business model and strategy.

For and on behalf of the Board

Alan Saunders

Chairman

6th October 2017

STATEMENT OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME

For the year ended 30th June 2017

	2017			2016
	Revenue	Capital	Total	Revenue	Capital	Total
	£'000	£'000	£'000	£'000	£'000	£'000
Gains on investments held at fair
value through profit or loss	-	204,432	204,432	-	91,226	91,226
Net foreign currency gains	-	939	939	-	4,723	4,723
Income from investments	21,816	-	21,816	16,978	-	16,978
Interest receivable	86	-	86	141	-	141
Gross return	21,902	205,371	227,273	17,119	95,949	113,068
Management fee	(2,915)	(6,801)	(9,716)	(2,406)	(5,613)	(8,019)
Other administrative expenses	(1,478)	-	(1,478)	(1,326)	-	(1,326)
Net return on ordinary activities
before taxation	17,509	198,570	216,079	13,387	90,336	103,723
Taxation	(1,537)	-	(1,537)	(1,251)	-	(1,251)
Net return on ordinary activities
after taxation	15,972	198,570	214,542	12,136	90,336	102,472
Return per share (note 3)	12.75p	158.45p	171.20p	9.49p	70.63p	80.12p

STATEMENT OF CHANGES IN EQUITY

For the year ended 30th June 2017

	Called up		Capital
	share	Share	redemption	Other	Capital	Revenue
	capital	premium	reserve	reserve	reserves	reserve1	Total
	£'000	£'000	£'000	£'000	£'000	£'000	£'000
At 30th June 2015	33,091	173,657	1,665	69,939	557,345	16,992	852,689
Repurchase of shares into Treasury	-	-	-	-	(12,812)	-	(12,812)
Net return on ordinary activities	-	-	-	-	90,336	12,136	102,472
Dividend paid in the year	-	-	-	-	-	(7,707)	(7,707)
At 30th June 2016	33,091	173,657	1,665	69,939	634,869	21,421	934,642
Repurchase of shares into Treasury	-	-	-	-	(16,878)	-	(16,878)
Net return on ordinary activities	-	-	-	-	198,570	15,972	214,542
Dividend paid in the year	-	-	-	-	-	(11,324)	(11,324)
At 30th June 2017	33,091	173,657	1,665	69,939	816,561	26,069	1,120,982

¹ This reserve forms the distributable reserve of the Company and may be used to fund distribution of profits to investors via dividend payments.

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION

For the year ended 30th June 2017

	2017	2016
	£'000	£'000
Fixed assets
Investments held at fair value through profit or loss	1,109,292	901,025
Current assets
Debtors	3,285	2,771
Cash and cash equivalents	10,580	31,052
	13,865	33,823
Current liabilities
Creditors: amounts falling due within one year	(2,173)	(206)
Derivative financial liabilities	(2)	-
Net current assets	11,690	33,617
Total assets less current liabilities	1,120,982	934,642
Net assets	1,120,982	934,642
Capital and reserves
Called up share capital	33,091	33,091
Share premium	173,657	173,657
Capital redemption reserve	1,665	1,665
Other reserve	69,939	69,939
Capital reserves	816,561	634,869
Revenue reserve	26,069	21,421
Total shareholders' funds	1,120,982	934,642
Net asset value per share (note 4)	904.7p	740.8p

STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS

For the year ended 30th June 2017

	2017	2016
	£'000	£'000
Net cash outflow from operations before dividends and interest	(10,218)	(4,648)
Dividends received	19,551	15,694
Interest received	86	141
Overseas tax recovered	229	57
Net cash inflow from operating activities	9,648	11,244
Purchases of investments	(80,427)	(20,794)
Sales of investments	76,582	28,918
Settlement of forward currency contracts	110	(37)
Net cash (outflow)/inflow from investing activities	(3,735)	8,087
Repurchase of shares into Treasury	(15,045)	(12,812)
Dividend paid	(11,324)	(7,707)
Net cash outflow from financing activities	(26,369)	(20,519)
Decrease in cash and cash equivalents	(20,456)	(1,188)
Cash and cash equivalents at start of year	31,052	32,219
Exchange movements	(16)	21
Cash and cash equivalents at end of year	10,580	31,052
Decrease in cash and cash equivalents	(20,456)	(1,188)
Cash and cash equivalents consist of:
Cash and short term deposits	3,871	697
Cash held in JPMorgan US Dollar Liquidity Fund	6,709	30,355
Total	10,580	31,052

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

For the year ended 30th June 2017

1.       Accounting policies

(a)     Basis of accounting

The financial statements are prepared under the historical cost convention, modified to include fixed asset investments at fair value, and in accordance with the Companies Act 2006, United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice ('UK GAAP'), including FRS 102 'The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland' and with the Statement of Recommended Practice 'Financial Statements of Investment Trust Companies and Venture Capital Trusts' (the 'SORP') issued by the Association of Investment Companies in November 2014, and updated in January 2017.

All of the Company's operations are of a continuing nature.

The financial statements have been prepared on a going concern basis. The disclosures on going concern on page 33 of the Directors' Report within the Annual Report and Accounts form part of the financial statements.

The policies applied in these financial statements are consistent with those applied in the preceding year.

2.       Dividends

          Dividends paid and proposed

	2017	2016
	£'000	£'000
Dividend paid
2016 Final dividend of 9.0p (2015: 6.0p) per share	11,324	7,707
Dividend proposed
2017 Final dividend proposed of 11.0p (2016: 9.0p) per share	13,630	11,356

The final dividend declared in respect of the year ended 30th June 2016 amounted to £11,356,000. However, the amount paid amounted to £11,324,000 due to shares repurchased after the balance sheet date but prior to the share register record date.

The dividend proposed in respect of the year ended 30th June 2017 is subject to shareholder approval at the forthcoming Annual General Meeting. In accordance with the accounting policy of the Company, this dividend will be reflected in the financial statements for the year ending 30th June 2018.

3.       Return per share

	2017	2016
	£'000	£'000
Revenue return	15,972	12,136
Capital return	198,570	90,336
Total return	214,542	102,472
Weighted average number of shares in issue during the year	125,320,130	127,893,440
Revenue return per share	12.75p	9.49p
Capital return per share	158.45p	70.63p
Total return per share	171.20p	80.12p

4.  Net asset value per share

	2017	2016
Net assets (£'000)	1,120,982	934,642
Number of shares in issue	123,907,844	126,174,703
Net asset value per share	904.7p	740.8p

5.     Status of results announcement

2016 Financial Information

The figures and financial information for 2016 are extracted from the Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 30th June 2016 and do not constitute the statutory accounts for the year. The Annual Report and Accounts include the Report of the Independent Auditors which is unqualified and does not contain a statement under either section 498(2) or section 498(3) of the Companies Act 2006.

2017 Financial Information

The figures and financial information for 2017 are extracted from the published Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 30th June 2017 and do not constitute the statutory accounts for that year. The Annual Report and Accounts will be delivered to the Registrar of Companies in due course and includes the Report of the Independent Auditors which was unqualified and did not contain a statement under either section 498(2) or section 498(3) of the Companies Act 2006.

Neither the contents of the Company's website nor the contents of any website accessible from hyperlinks on the Company's website (or any other website) is incorporated into, or forms part of, this announcement.

JPMORGAN FUNDS LIMITED

ENDS

A copy of the annual report will shortly be submitted to the National Storage Mechanism and will be available for inspection at www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/NSM

The annual report will shortly be available on the Company's website at www.jpmemergingmarkets.co.uk where up-to-date information on the Company, including daily NAV and share prices, factsheets and portfolio information can also be found.

JPMORGAN FUNDS LIMITED

 

END

 

 

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