I wrote a previous blog article on the merits of Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) but I thought it worthwhile to actually do some analysis of the capital and dividend returns from some of my historic holdings of such companies. This is not at all easy because most VCTs have been through restructuring or mergers over the years and actually identifying all the dividends received was not easy because I only started using Sharescope after some years which automatically records the dividends and gives the overall returns. But Stockopedia does provide historic dividends for all prior years and all past capital events and dividends were taken into account.
Due to this complexity and effort involved I have only managed to analyse Northern Venture Trust (NVT) which I first purchased in 1995 and British Smaller Companies VCT (BSV) first purchased in 1997. Note that there were later additions of shares in those companies also.
But it is interesting to note that the overall returns, including dividends, on those companies were 3.6% per annum and 2.6% per annum. That’s ignoring the zero tax on the dividend income and the initial income tax relief (and capital gains roll-over relief originally available but no longer). More on this later.
How have these companies performed in capital terms? Both quite badly, managing to both generate a capital loss of 28% and 26% respectively over the years. You can see from these numbers that the capital is effectively turned into dividends and that without the tax reliefs they would not have been good investments, particularly after taking account of inflation over the many years they were held.
However the capital losses are effectively wiped out by the income tax reliefs available. Assuming that was 30% (it was both higher and lower historically), the per annum total return increases to 5.5% for NVT and 3.9% for BSV. Those returns were less than that achieved by investing in the FTSE-100. The compound annual return of the FTSE 100 over the last 25 years was 6.4% with dividends reinvested. Again most of those returns came from dividends rather than capital appreciation.
But the VCT returns (which are mainly obtained via dividends) ignore the fact that the dividends for those are tax free whereas those from the FTSE-100 would be taxed at high rates. Currently that is 32.5% for Higher Rate taxpayers but the rates have varied in the last 25 years so it’s difficult to work out the exact impact. But one can estimate that the benefit of the VCT dividends being tax free probably raises the total return to be similar if not greater than that from investing in the FTSE-100.
Note that I have ignored the capital gains roll-over relief on VCTs that was available on my early investments. It was only a roll-over relief so it can come back and hit you later anyway.
These calculations show how important the tax reliefs on VCTs are to investors. Without the up-front income tax relief and the dividend tax relief, they would not be good investments. That is particularly so bearing in mind the risks of VCT investment – although they have diversified portfolios of smaller companies, some have performed quite badly in the past. The VCTs mentioned happen to be two of the more successful ones. Future Chancellors please note.
VCTs have been very successful at stimulating investment in smaller companies which has contributed to the vibrancy of the UK company in recent years so any withdrawal of reliefs would be very negative.
VCTs are a tricky area for investors in that corporate governance is not always good and management costs are high, particularly due to excessive performance fees. I feel the managers often do better than the investors in such trusts. But VCTs, at least the better ones, do have a place in the portfolios of higher rate taxpayers.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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Thanks Roger. It may also be worth pointing out that while the tax relief helps, the positive effect is dissipated over long holding periods. An alternative might be to invest for rolling 5 year periods, reloading on tax relief at every cycle (while being careful not to fall foul of the 6 month sale/repurchase rule). Following this strategy can improve the after tax return.
I agree that could be a useful strategy. But bear in mind that there are often high spreads on VCT shares and big discounts to NAV. You often take an immediate hit on the value of new investments. Sometimes it can be easier to simply buy VCT shares in the market which still qualify for the dividend tax relief and ignore the up-front income tax relief. That also saves you a lot of administrative effort.