Toby Ross, the co-manager of Scottish American (SAIN ) who has played a big role in promoting the investment trust in recent years, is stepping back to ‘to concentrate on his other responsibilities at Baillie Gifford’.

The £1bn global equity income portfolio will continue to be run by lead manager James Dow and deputy manager Ross Mathison who joined the team in August.

The announcement came in annual results that saw ‘Saints’ achieve its 50th consecutive rise in full-year dividends. The board declared a 3.8p final dividend, lifting the total 2023 payout by 2% to 14.1p per share.

The ‘modest’ increase is down from the previous year’s 9% rise and does not match the annual rate of inflation. Revenues were flat at £30m, leaving the distribution slightly uncovered by earnings per share of 13.48p.

Shareholders’ total return of 8.2%, which includes dividends, did not match the 15.7% advance in global equities with the broadly diversified portfolio unable to keep up with the ‘handful of large US technology companies’ that dominated last year in investor excitement over artificial intelligence.

More to follow.