Surge in RIT's asset value proves Rothschild right

The City grandee Lord Rothschild called it right last year when he took his investment trust RIT Capital Partners back into shares in a big way.

Between September and December RIT upped its equity allocation from 51 per cent to 61 per cent of funds. The result is the trust saw its net-asset value surging by 9.9 per cent to an all-time high of 1,309p a share by 22 February. That took the overall assets above £2bn for the first time.

Lord Rothschild, pictured, said: "These results have been achieved through the most perilous financial era of a lifetime. We have not abandoned the overall caution which the world economy still demands, but our focus has shifted more towards growth.

"To reflect our increasing confidence in markets we have reduced our defensive hedges and identified investments which are attractively valued. Our particular emphasis in the current year has been targeted at an improving US economy."

He pointed out that an investor who had bought RIT shares when it floated on the stock market back in 1988 would have enjoyed an annual 11.4 per cent rise in their shares.