Abrdn UK Smaller Companies Growth (AUSC) made an underlying investment return of 6.8% in the 12 months to 30 June after a more difficult second half of its financial year for fund managers Abby Glennie and Amanda Yeaman saw the £298m trust slip behind the 7.8% total return of the Deutsche Numis Smaller Companies plus AIM index. However, shareholders enjoyed an 11.4% return as the share price discount to net asset value ( NAV ) narrowed to 9% from 12.5% in response to the company buying back 16.8% of its shares at a cost of £62.6m. Buying back cheap stock added 9.8p to NAV per share. A final dividend of 9.5p per share lifts the total for the year by 10% to 13.2p, driven by strong revenues and also the buybacks which by reducing the number of shares cut the cost of the dividend by 10%, enabling the board to transfer £1.4m to revenue reserves.