苏格兰抵押投资信托 — 经理人回顾，截至2001年3月31日年报（詹姆斯·安德森）

United Kingdom The FTSE All-Share Index fell 12.8% over the year to 31 March 2001. In the firs the previous 12 months: previously fashionable sectors tumbled (telecommunications fell 52%, media 36%, and technology 60%) whilst defensive sectors came to the fore. For example, beverages rose 32%, food and drug retailers 26%, and tobacco 47%. Some cyclicals also fared better, notably the housebuilders. We made a further reduction in the UK holdings of £154m so that our exposure now reflects more appropriately the comparatively limited selection of appealing stocks that is available in the British market. We made several changes to the porttolio during the year, in general taking steps to increase its defensiveness. Our initially overweight position in telecommunications hurt performance, but our subsequent move to underweight this area and the increased defensiveness of the portfolio helped, leaving us marginally behind the index for the year. Our perception of the prospects of the telecommunications industry changed dramatically in the course of the year.

While growth in mobile phone subscribers has continued apace, the economics of the industry deteriorated. The 3rd generation license auctions saw the start of a large increase in costs for the operators: not only are they now paying much more for licenses, but rollout costs for the new networks are considerable, debt has increased, and there are more competitors in most markets. Only the strongest companies will have a chance to prosper in this environment so our main exposure remains through a reduced holding in Vodafone. We sold British Telecom as erious price deflation emerged in some ol is core businesses, debt levels spirallec and earnings estimates were slashed. We also sold smaller holdings in alternative carriers such as Atlantic Telecom and Energis, where overcapacity is driving down pricing even more than we hac anticipated. We have increased exposure to economically defensive stocks that at the same time have reasonable growth FATE We retained a successful overweight in banks.

The market became more confident much linded interest ratos fining do rise and WPP fone of the largest advertising agencies in the world). Reed is insensitive to economic conditions and is emerging fear a period of slowdown in turing. inding it difficult to identify many new uying ideas the British market does offe 1 An example of Allied Domeca's new adve campaign for its well-known brands A Shell platform in the Gulf of Mexico, oter deoth of 1km. Shell's excellent de capabilities wilt be one of the drivers for over the next few years Continental Europe 1 ovaris echnicians conducing genomics. 2 French international football as shown on IFT'S EUROSPORT channel lefensive stocks The speed and scope of the profit squeeze in the technology sector surprised us. Whilst we recognised the likelihood of a modest setback as internet idealism faded and capacity increases proliferated we did not expect that demand would fall as sharply as has occurred.

Nor did we think that margins would collapse as dramatically as has happened. We were probably too contident in our views given the success of our investments in this area in the previous year. However, we are determined not to sell our holdings in businesses with highly attractive long-term growth opportunities and market positions propy ms Plus of the certint that many of our holdings are indeed proving their relative strength in the present demanding circumstances. The initial falls in European markets las spring were provoked by the high cost o 3rd generation mobile phone licences and by evidence of increasing competition ir the entire telecommunications market. This and Sonera, two of the worst offenders in this regard. In recent weeks we have become slightly more confident about the which enjoys an extremely strong position n the French market and which wa loated at a low valuatior By last autumn markets were becoming nervous about the prospects for all technology companies.

Telecommunications leadership and the purchase of an American competitor. Internet related equipment expenditures collapsed by the winter. We were badly hurt by the weak earnings reported by Intershop in this segment. We regard this as our single worst misjudgement of the year and we have subsequently sold the stock. Our performance in the other sectors of the market was mediocre but improved in the course of the year. We have slowly rebuilt our holdings in European harmaceutical companies as we have been deliahted to see evidence that their pipelines are now healthier than at any time in the recent past. We have purchased Aventis, Novartis and Akzo Nobel as strong examples of this general rend. In the tinancial sector our genera approach has been to focus on the tuna management and asset gathering segments. Here two German stocks have impressed us.

Deutsche Bank is finally exploiting the strength of its domestic fund management franchise and MLP has proved both dynamic and secure in its dominance of the regular savings market for the German professional classes. We have been slightly disappointed by indications that the European economy has slowed markedly in recent months. We are concerned by the reluctance of the European Central Bank to cut interest rates as we see no sign that inflation is a danger. Despite these concerns we see no reason to become too gloomy. Helped by widespread fiscal stimulus European conomies are still growing, even if at o nore modest pace than we had once hoped. Corporate earnings are proving volatile rather than depressing. We would emphasise that many of our holdings are showing pleasing underlying trends amidst the cyclical anxieties. In many industries continental come ele in or i te lobal position.

We believe hould perform better in the coming year and think that this will also be true of our portfolio. The Americas United States The S&P 500 Composite Index fell by Our US equity portfolio matched this erformance despite our slight slowness t educe the substantial exposure t technology stocks which had contributed greatly to the previous year's good performance. The most notable development in the United States this year, other than the fall in the stockmarket, has been a sharp slowdown in the pace of economic growth. At the end of 1999 the economy vas growing at an annual rate in excess of 8% in real terms. By the end of 2000 growth was barely 1%, although initial stimates suggest a small rebound in tf rst quarter of 200° The Federal Reserve believes that the slowdown is the result of a normal cyclical correction in business inventories, but is concerned that part of the corporate sector's response to this correction, job cuts, may affect consumer confidence and so lead to a more severe downturn.

It is • therefore willing to cut interest rates Tha eup or id oft ending, which nixed. Property prices have continued to ise and purchases of big ticket items such The prospects for the technology sector deteriorated far more dramatically than we initially anticipated. Production capacity had risen sharply in the sector in the past two years. When investors reassessed their enthusiasm for financing internet and start- 1 The monster logo of TMP Worldwide's monster.com, America's leading internet recruitment site 2 CNN, an AOL Time Warner company, rep, the merger of AOL and Time Warner Fast Retailing is Japan's foremost retailer ‹ ow-priced casual clothir 2 Sumitomo Chemical's advanced plastic materials have a variety of uses including walls for convertible open air swimming pools Japan ounterparts in the year under review. The combination of the global derating of echnology and telecommunications share: ith disappointment about Japan's sluggis! economy and the lack of structural reform created a miserable 12 months for equity investors.

The TOPIX declined by 25.1% in local currency terms, and yen weakness worsened this to a fall of 31.2% in sterling terms. Scottish Mortgage's Japanese portfolio lagged this index owing to a high weighting in technology and telecommunications so relinquishing some of the strong relative performance of recent years. Economic growth failed to match expectations. The initial impetus from exports and capital expenditure met with little response from domestic consumption ind gradually petered out as global conomic growth faded. On top of thi the fragility of the country's financial system was again exposed. The weak equity market and continuing heavy burden of non-performing loans cast fresh doubts on the capital adequacy of major banks, and several life insurance companies went bankrupt. An illtimed interest rate rise did not help matters. The important bright spot against this depressing background was the buoyancy of corporate profits.

Quoted companies in aggregate beat their earnings forecasts throughout 2000, and the broader Ministry of Finance survey continues to show corporate Japan's pretax earnings growing at a rate of over 30% year or year. This suggests that companies are delivering on their restructuring promises and are achieving a strong recovery in profitability despite the absence of top line growth. The international collapse of technology stocks had a severe impact in Japan, where valuations had become especially stretched and certain bellwether stocks reported disappointing results. We sold highly rated technology companies that were failing to deliver forecast rates of earnings growth, such as Softbank, Fujitsu, Sony and MCI. However, many other electronics and communications stocks were dragged down by sentiment despite continuing strong operational performance. We took advantage of this to increase the stakes in mobile operator NIT DoCoMo and semiconductor manufacturer Rohm, and to buy new holdings in telecommunications component supplier Kyocera and office automation equipment manufacturer Canon.

Elsewhere in the portfolio we made a successful switch in the automobile sector from Toyota to Honda. This was prompted by Honda's booming US sales and comparatively low valuation. In the retail sector we switched from Ryohin Keikaku to Fast Retailing, whose UniQlo discount clothing outlets are enjoying startling growth. Near the end of the period more encouraging signs began to appear in Japan. The central bank cut interest rates back to zero, and promised to keep them there until price deflation is over. Meanwhile the government indicated willingness to start the long overdue series of banking sector reforms necessary for improving the strength and efficiency of the country's financial system and process of capital allocation in general. We responded to this by increasing our Japanese weighting, buying the newly merged major bank UFJ, Promise (consumer lending) and Fuji Photo.

We are cautiously optimistic about the year ahead and look eagerly for continued evidence that Japan is finally attempting to address its structural problems. Asia Pacific The performance of Asian economies has and decline of demand from the USA. Asia's overall economic recovery since the crisis of 1997 has been driven almost entirely by export growth, primarily from America, and as that single prop has been removed, expectations of total economic rowth for the region have been revise lown accordingly. Weakness in expor has been exacerbated by angemic demand from Japan and by the fall of the Countries with the most exposed export sectors, such as Australia, Taiwan and Singapore, have seen the trade slowdown spread quickly into their domestic economies. Their reaction has been to allow their currencies to depreciate and to loosen their interest rate policies in order to sustain some growth.

In doing this they have been helped by having greater policy flexibility than other countries in the region such as Hong Kong with its currency link to the strong US dollar. Stockmarkets have all reacted poorly to the economic slowdown. Unfortunately our portfolio underperformed the FTSE Asia Pacific Ex Japan Index, which itself declined by 14.7% over the year. We suffered from our exposure to the weak Korean and Taiwanese markets where earnings expectations dropped sharply during the autumn and winter. Generally technology and telecommunication stocks, the market favourites of the previous year, fell particularly sharply. Our Chinese stocks, Legend and China Mobile, were unfortunately no exception. Our Indian software holdings were also affected by increasing concerns about lower technology spending and we have sold our holding in infosys in the face of this situation. The outlook for the next 12 months is unclear.

In the shortrun Asian markets will continue to be heavily dependent on the development of the American economy. 1 One of Legend's internet enabled PCS 2 Some of Johnston Electric's range of mot