The strong performance was put down to good stock selection, diversification and disciplined portfolio construction.

During the period the company delivered a NAV total return of 22.3% and a share price total return of 23.9% (MSCI AC Asia ex Japan Small Cap Index returned 9.5%). Net assets increased to £630.2 million (2025: £558.6m) and net asset value per share increased to 460.05p (2025: 381.72p).

The company reported exceptionally strong earnings and returns from technology-related holdings, balanced with exposure to a range of sectors, and underlying growth drivers, including diversified industrials, financial services, healthcare, logistics and domestic consumption, ensuring the portfolio’s resilience without reliance on any single theme.

It has declared three interim dividends of 1.6p and a fourth interim of 1.64p totalling 6.44p (2025 – Ordinary dividend 6.43p).

Chair Krishna Shanmuganathan said: “Despite the challenges posed by geopolitical tensions, trade policy developments and rising global bond yields, the Board is pleased to announce another year of strong performance, with a share price return of 23.9% against 9.5% for the index over this period.

“Asia continues to offer a broad opportunity set of innovative and entrepreneurial businesses, which often derive revenues from domestic demand and are relatively sheltered from global macro shifts.

“We remain optimistic about the prospects for Asian smaller companies, which are often under-researched and under-valued providing an ideal hunting ground for our manager to continue to seek further outperformance.”