Active investment in global opportunities

Lazard World Trust Fund (WTR, formerly The World Trust Fund) offers investors access to a concentrated portfolio of the ‘best ideas’ of Lazard Asset Management’s Discounted Assets team, who manage more than $5bn of assets invested globally in undervalued companies, such as closed-end funds, investment trusts and holding companies that are trading at a discount to the value of their assets. Following a number of changes in 2016, the fund now pays a distribution of 3.5% of year-end NAV, making it the highest-yielding fund in its peer group, and, as requested by shareholders, has a new benchmark (MSCI AC World ex-US rather than the US-heavy MSCI AC World) that better reflects its international focus and high weighting in emerging markets. Recent performance has been strong, and the manager sees many exciting opportunities in areas such as China, India, Vietnam, Brazil, Romania, and smaller companies in the US and Europe. The fund can also hedge equity and currency exposures.