2025's top investment trusts

The end of the tax year is drawing near, and 2025 is only 25% of the way over

Is it possible for one of these leading investment trusts to complement your ISA?

As tax year-end draws near, astute investors will be wondering which investment trusts would be the best to include in their ISAs before the deadline.

An efficient method of investing in stocks and funds, as well as less liquid assets like venture capital-funded businesses or infrastructure projects, is through investment trusts.

A limited quantity of shares are issued at the beginning of these actively managed funds' existence, and they function as independent listed businesses with shares that are traded on a stock exchange.

This implies that investment trusts have the ability to trade below the net asset value of the assets they own, though this is correlated with their capacity to hold less liquid assets. Compared to mutual funds and other investment options, they also provide a number of additional advantages.

At Kepler Partners, Thomas McMahon, head of investment companies research, says, "The investment trust sector tends to attract the best managers; the structure gives managers plenty of flexibility to generate alpha, while the closed-ended nature means the management contracts are highly prized by fund groups."

Which investment trusts have performed the best so far in 2025, and what are the best investment trusts according to research for investors to think about before the ISA deadline?

In 2025, which investment trusts will be the best?

The list of the best investment trusts for 2025 was released in January by Kepler Trust Intelligence, a digital publication that covers investment companies from Kepler Partners.

Based on a proprietary quantitative rating system, Kepler's research identifies the best investment trusts that, in accordance with its model, exhibit long-term, appealing performance traits. For your stocks and shares ISA, this might provide some ideas.

The ratings provide a comprehensive analysis that accounts for risk, the investment sector, fund objectives, and performance in comparison to a benchmark, taking into account performance over a five-year period.

Kepler divides the best investment trusts into three groups: funds with growth ratings, funds with income ratings, and funds with alternative income ratings. The latter examines pertinent industries for trusts that have produced dividend growth and a flat or steady net asset value (NAV) over the previous five years.

According to McMahon, "Our ratings are intended to identify managers who have done exceptionally well to generate outperformance and mitigate the market risk during a highly volatile period over the past five years, and they reward the outstanding performers in three key categories."

The best trusts for growth investments.

Kepler's list of the best growth-rated funds includes the following.

AIC is the source. signifies current or planned corporate action.

Of the investment trusts Kepler initially selected, the Fidelity China Special Situations trust is the best performer. BBGI Global Infrastructure and JPMorgan European Growth and Income also manage to make it into the top 20 (although it is important to note that British Columbia Investment Management Corporation has offered BBGI Global Infrastructure £1 billion in cash to buy the investment trust).

However, overall, there isn't much overlap between Kepler's list and the top performers for 2025.

This emphasizes how difficult it is for investors to make short-term predictions about future top performers. Although the markets anticipated turbulence under the new Trump administration, few could have foreseen the magnitude of the big tech selloff or its effect on the S&P 500.

Therefore, many investors will have been taken aback by the impressive performance of investment trusts with a focus on Europe and China thus far this year.

Even though long-term investing is generally advised, this is especially true for investment trusts. Their advantages include the ability to provide exposure to asset classes that frequently take years or decades to yield a return, so investors shouldn't be overly alarmed by their short-term performance (or yields).