Marketing Communication
For the long-term investor, dividend reinvestment can be a simple but effective way to increase investment value over time.
One of the most remarkable aspects about investing in the stock market is that, despite inevitable short-term fluctuations, over the long term a portfolio’s total value can increase at an accelerating pace over time (although this is of course not guaranteed).
Moreover, it’s not all about identifying the next high-octane growth opportunities. This can happen even if you have built a balanced portfolio focused on steadier, more mature companies that pay out regular dividends but are less likely to produce dramatic capital uplift than younger, growth-focused businesses.
A phenomenon called compounding is working the magic here. If you hold a portfolio that includes some dividend-paying investment trusts, for example, and opt to have any distributions automatically reinvested (as opposed to taking them as income), they will be used to buy more dividend-paying shares in those trusts.
That means you own more shares that will pay out the next time a distribution takes place, and those extra dividends themselves will be ploughed back into the portfolio as new shares that produce payouts, and so on.
Of course, reinvesting dividends won’t make sense all the time for every investor. For example, you may be more interested in redirecting earnings from one fund into another of your holdings to rebalance your portfolio, or into a new investment to improve diversification.
Retirees, meanwhile, are likely to prefer to withdraw their dividend proceeds as cash to supplement their pension income. But as a general principle, and unless you need the money for other things, compounding makes a lot of sense.
A real-life example
To demonstrate its impressive potential, let’s take a real-life example in the shape of The Mercantile Investment Trust (MRC), which invests in UK mid-cap and smaller companies.
Let us consider the somewhat unlikely scenario of two investors who each invest £1,000 in the trust on 30 September 1984 and retain their holdings for 40 years. Carrie opts to reinvest her dividends; Mia decides to withdraw them for extra spending money.
After five years there is a modest difference between the values of the two funds, with both enjoying some capital growth but Carrie’s reinvested dividends giving her a lead of just over £200. After 10 years those compounding dividends mean the gap has widened to more than £600.
Each decade sees an increase in the differential between the two funds. After 20 years Carrie is ahead by 90%, with a fund worth about £7,500, compared with Mia’s on £4,000. By the 30th anniversary, Carrie’s MRC holding is worth over £21,000, almost two and a half times more than Mia’s.
By September 2024, 40 years of capital growth alone has transformed Mia’s £1,000 investment into a very respectable £23,500. But the additional shares bought with reinvested payouts over those four decades mean Carrie’s nest egg is now worth over £75,000 - more than three times that of Mia.
An investment bedrock
One beauty of dividend reinvestment as a factor in your long-term portfolio growth is that companies (and the investment trusts investing in them) typically maintain their regular distributions regardless of what’s happening to the share price, which gives investors a welcome element of security.
If times are tough, companies may have to reduce the dividend payout, but it is relatively rare that dividends are suspended altogether.
To put that into some perspective, among UK companies to the end of October 2025, 17 out of 21 sectors saw higher payouts year on year on an underlying basis, and eight companies in 10 either increased dividends or held them steady¹.
Additionally, on the upside, companies may make one-off special dividends from time to time – for instance if they have had a particularly profitable year, have sold assets or are keen to demonstrate their commitment to shareholders.
Furthermore, for investors keen to tap into a sustainable dividend culture, investment trusts have particular strengths.
Their structure as listed companies means that (unlike open-ended funds) they do not have to pay out all the dividend income they receive from portfolio companies, but can use up to 15% to build up a reserve. In leaner years they can draw on this to supplement natural dividends, thereby smoothing payouts to shareholders from year to year.
In fact, some trusts have prioritised long-term dividend growth and sustainability for shareholders. The Association of Investment Companies’ Dividend Heroes accolade recognises those that have consistently increased dividends for 20 years or more.
That highly desirable status is much prized, giving shareholders in those trusts additional confidence that their stream of income for reinvestment will be maintained.
How to set up dividend reinvestment
Clearly, reliable automatic reinvestment of payouts is critical to effective dividend compounding. There are two ways to ensure your investment income will be redirected back into the market.
One way to reinvest dividends is to log into your investment platform and select the dividend reinvestment service, if available. You can also invest through third-party providers or by consulting a professional adviser.
Additionally, some of our trusts participate in Computershare’s Dividend Reinvestment Plan, which you can opt into at any time during your investment. As a share registry and investor services provider, Computershare manages shareholdings for many listed companies—including most JPMorgan investment trusts—and will automatically reinvest your dividends on your behalf. Either way you will be charged a small amount for each reinvestment trade.
For long-term investors keen to take advantage of the power of compounding, JPMorgan Asset Management oversees a range of investment trusts that pay an attractive and reliable dividend (in several cases quarterly), while still focusing their portfolios on the high-quality businesses with strong future prospects that are best placed to generate long-term capital growth.
