UK investment trusts are outstripping open-ended funds in most sectors and most time periods, according to new research from F&C Investments.

Out of the eight sectors F&C looked at, investment trusts have beaten open-ended funds in all of them in the past ten years.

In both the UK equity Income and the Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) sectors, investment trusts outperformed open-ended funds by more than 8 per cent in the ten years up to September 2011.

In the past five years, the only exception is the Japan sector, where open-ended funds have done slightly better, which was also the case in the 12 months to September.

Beside the aforementioned, F&C also looked at share price total returns in UK Smaller Companies, Global Growth, Global Emerging Markets, Europe (excluding the UK) and North America.

F&C highlights the case study of Standard Life’s open-ended Equity Income Fund and Equity Income Investment Trust, both managed by Karen Robertson. Last year, income from the former fell by 16.1 per cent, while the latter boosted its dividend by 2.2 per cent. The open-ended fund has also fallen by 15.6 per cent this year and the trust raised its dividend by 12.7 per cent.

The research was made by Winterflood Securities for Peter Hewitt, trust manager at F&C.