Stockbroker Winterflood Securities has highlighted the bumper level of share buybacks that have taken place in the investment trust sector so far this year, with records broken both on the amount spent and the number of trusts taking action. 

The total deployed on buybacks across London’s closed-end fund sector was £2.7bn in the first quarter of 2025, according to Winterflood, upping the pace from an also record-breaking 2024. 

Scottish Mortgage (SMT ) led the way, as it bought back more than £500m of its own shares to tackle a double-digit discount. 

The figures are indicative of the wide discounts that persist across the sector but also speak to the increased efforts boards are making to improve shareholder value since activist Saba Capital kicked up a fuss in December last year. 

Winterflood’s monthly review of the sector, released earlier this month, highlighted that investment trusts bought back £903m worth of shares in total in March.

That took the total for the first quarter of the year to £2.7bn – 67% higher than the equivalent period for 2024. Citywire analysis of Winterfood data also suggests this was the highest ever quarterly total. 

The figures were buoyed up by an unprecedented number of trusts participating in buyback schemes in February and March. February was the standout month, with a ‘record-breaking’ 130 trusts actively buying back shares. 

The record numbers were preceded by a climb in buybacks – the most common measure that boards use to address share discounts to net asset value (NAV) – at the end of last year, when trusts deployed £2.2bn on buybacks in the final quarter. 

2024 as a whole marked a massive record for buybacks at £7.6bn, according to previous Winterflood data. That was nearly double £3.9bn in 2023, after £2.7bn was spent in 2022. 

Scottish Mortgage leads the charge

A sizeable chunk of last month’s total was contributed by Baillie Gifford’s £10.5bn flagship trust Scottish Mortgage, which said it would make available ‘at least £1bn’ for the purpose of buybacks this time last year. It subsequently emerged that US activist Elliott Associates had built a 5% stake and pushed for the buyback programme. 

Last month, Scottish Mortgage bought back £126m worth of shares. That takes the quarterly total to £525m, which Winterflood said was ‘considerably more than any other fund so far this year’.

With SMT having bought back £1.3bn of shares last year, that means the firepower spent on buybacks is pushing towards £2bn – considerably more than was initially announced. 

The global Baillie Gifford trust, managed by Tom Slater and Lawrence Burns, remains on a nearly 11% discount after its tech holdings have been caught up in the tariff-driven selloff this year. 

SMT was followed by Pershing Square Holdings (PSH ) and Smithson (SSON ), which deployed £109m and £103m on buybacks, respectively, in the first three months of this year.