Standard Life Investments, the global fund manager, today announced that the Standard Life European Private Equity Trust (SLEPET) was named Best Private Equity Trust in the Investment Trust Magazine Awards for 2005.
The award was for the outstanding performance of SLEPET, which delivered a total share price return of 63.9% in 2005. This was more than twice the average for the sector. Over the same period, the Trusts unaudited net asset value per share ('NAV') increased by 32.4% to 158.5p at 31 December 2005 from 119.7p at 31 December 2004.
SLEPET invests in European private equity in a fund of funds approach by investing in private equity funds run by Europe's leading managers. The focus is on those funds that invest in mid-market and large buyouts.
Jonny Maxwell, Chief Executive of Standard Life Investment (Private Equity) Limited, said:
Were delighted that the excellent performance of the Trust throughout 2005 has been recognised in this way. Against a background of a strong European private equity market SLEPET has performed well, enjoying an excellent year of growth in share price, NAV and distributions received.
The strong NAV performance has been driven by an encouraging market for private equity realisations, robust trading at many of the underlying investee companies and rising financial markets.
Source: Standard Life Investment
