City of London

CTY has benefitted from strong stock picking and the structural advantages of investment trusts...

City of London

CTY is an attractive package, backed by 57 years of dividend increases…

The Hardman & Co Monthly: September 2023

Feature article: Equity Income – UK or Global? Should investors widen their horizons? Introduction: ► The UK Equity Income sector (UKEI) is the fourth-largest investment company (IC) sector in the Association of Investment Companies’ (AIC) universe, with £12.5bn of assets (as at August 2023), and is the traditional home for investors looking for income in the equity market. ► The UKEI not only provides investors with a better dividend yield than the ge

Hardman & Co Insight: Equity Income – UK or Global? Should investors widen their horizons?

Introduction ► The UK Equity Income sector (UKEI) is the fourth-largest investment company (IC) sector in the Association of Investment Companies’ (AIC) universe, with £12.5bn of assets (as at August 2023), and is the traditional home for investors looking for income in the equity market. ► The UKEI not only provides investors with a better dividend yield than the general UK market, but also has a strong track record of dividend growth. Indeed, many funds feature on the AIC’s “dividend heroes”

City of London

CTY’s managers aim to keep as many eggs in the basket as possible…

City of London

Longest (dividend growth), largest (market cap), lowest (charges)...

Staying active

Today, passively managed funds are the dominant owners of US equities, having surpassed actively managed strategies. There are clear attractions to passive investing, such as low cost, diversification, easy access and availability. Additionally, the investment approach is clearly defined. Passive investing is inherently a ‘core’ style of investing because, by using an index-tracking fund, investors gain near perfect exposure to the benchmark by which all other styles are measured. Index-trackin

City of London

Strong relative performance, and improving revenues suggest CTY is bouncing back

Dividends in the time of corona

“A cow for her milk, a hen for her eggs, and a stock, by heck, for her dividends.” This ditty was written by John Burr Williams, a foundational thinker in the theory of investment valuation and one of the foremost influences on another investor also known for his pithy investing wisdom, Warren Buffett. In markets, attention is often grabbed by glamourous and exciting opportunities for investors looking for the next big thing, so it is all too easy to forget that there is a large, more sober coho

Don’t fear the reaper

With market direction hard to call, we consider the case for taking a long- term view in the investment trust sector...

Don't fear the reaper

Investors are increasingly unsure about what to do with their money, at least according to those we speak to. The reflationary rally seems to be over, and since the summer the market has gyrated between value and growth, pandemic optimism and pessimism, clean energy and fossil fuels, et cetera, et cetera… While the general consensus is now that inflation will remain high for a considerable period of time, it is unclear yet whether this is a bullish or bearish scenario. Unfortunately, an investm

City of London - Overview

City of London Investment Trust (CTY) has recently published its annual results, providing further detail on the financial year to 30 June 2021. As we discuss in the Dividend section, the results show that in the past financial year, revenues have improved significantly and Job seems optimistic on the prospects of continued recovery in the current financial year. CTY’s reliable income is a key attraction for investors, which is reflected in its premium rating and steady issuance of shares over

City of London - Overview

City of London’s (CTY) objective is to provide long-term growth in income and capital. The trust has the longest track record of providing annual dividend increases in the investment trust sector. The board has stated that it intends to continue to pay a progressive dividend, which if achieved in the current financial year will represent 55 consecutive years of growth. Job Curtis, CTY’s manager for 30 years, is a fundamental stock picker who prefers defensive companies which can deliver demonst

City of London - Overview

City of London’s (CTY) objective is to provide long-term growth in income and capital. CTY has the longest track record of providing annual dividend increases in the investment trust sector, which now has 54 consecutive years of growth since 1966. The COVID-19 crisis and market sell-off has left CTY underperforming the market over the short term. However stock selection remained positive in the financial year to 30/06/2020 – as it has been for eight out of the past ten financial years. Being gea

Hold fast

A long, long time ago, I can still remember how, that election had us all talking about sterling (well, some of us). Instead now we are hard put not to talk about mass dividend cuts, with Link Group estimating dividend cuts of 47% or more in the UK equity market. Way back in those distant epochs of early December 2019, we appeared to be approaching a greater degree of certainty about the shape of the future in the UK: an election was in the offing which promised to help resolve the outlook for o

LIBERUM: Plus500: Strategic progress pays dividends

Tatton Asset Management (TAM LN) - Record net inflows

Tatton, the leading on-platform discretionary fund manager (DFM) and IFA support services Group has released a trading update ahead of its results to 31 March 2024, due on 18 June 2024.

Hardman & Co Insight: 2023 was an annus horribilis for Quoted UK Infrastructure and Renewable Energy

The focus of Hardman & Co Research is on the nine quoted Infrastructure Investment Companies (IICs) and on the 22 Renewable Energy Infrastructure Funds (REIFs): the stocks analysed are all members of the Association of Investment Companies (AIC). We are updating our publication of January 2023, assessing both the lacklustre share price performances during 2023 and the key issues, including interest rates, inflation and power prices. As a 31-strong group, its combined market capitalisation is no

Ondo InsurTech FY24 Trading Update

Ondo InsurTech has released a brief post-YE update revealing its good progress continued through 2H24 and consequently FY24 will be in line with market expectations.

Foxtons Group (FOXT LN) - 1Q24 IMS shows real momentum

Foxtons Group plc first quarter revenue rose 9% to £35.7m (1Q23: £32.9m) with growth delivered across all business segments. Trading is in line with management's expectations.

BlackRock World Mining

BRWM’s managers: we see all the classic signs of high commodity prices...

Morning Note – 18 April 2024

NextEnergy Solar Fund - Attractive Refinancing

The refinancing of a £135m revolving credit facility and the extension of a similar £70m facility gives NESF firepower as development opportunities for new solar are especially attractive thanks to lower module prices in Europe. They give the fund key financial flexibility at a critical time as it pursues its capital recycling programme.

Foxtons Group - FY24 underpinned by market share gains

Foxtons Group’s Q1 revenue grew by 9%, supported by growth in all three divisions as the strategic initiatives continue to gain significant momentum, driven by investment in staff, best-in-class bespoke IT and data platforms. This implies that Foxtons’ medium-term targets are now coming into focus. Market share is being gained in all divisions, which puts Foxtons in a good position as the sales market stabilises. We maintain our valuation of 132p/share and believe that if interest rates stabilis

NextEnergy Solar Fund – High- and growing-income opportunity?

NextEnergy Solar Fund (NESF) is almost 10 years old. Since launch, it has built a £1.2bn, 933MW portfolio of 100 operating solar assets, powering the equivalent of over 330,000 homes, declared dividends totalling £333m, and avoided the emission of about 2.2 Mt CO2e. NESF is on track to pay 8.35p in dividends, with forecast dividend cover of about 1.3x. Share price weakness that has afflicted the whole sector means that dividend translates to a yield of 11.1%, one of the highest in its sector, a

The Hardman & Co Monthly: April 2024

Feature article: Steady as she goes, but could be better: A review of investment company liquidity since 2016 Liquidity is the lifeblood of equity markets. The measurement of liquid asset availability to a market or company is a way of gauging a market’s health. This article builds on our previous work, which analysed the liquidity data for non-financial trading companies, by applying the same analytical techniques to the investment companies (IC) space. We analyse liquidity for ICs as a whol

Initial Equity Trading Comments - 19 February 2024

M Winkworth+ (WINK, House Stock at 163p) - Solid FY23A results, well placed to grow

Hybridan Research: Sector Review: Artificial intelligence in UK cybersecurity: the human uplift 17/04/2024

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a double-edged sword in cybersecurity. Whilst new AI models, architectures, and innovations are emerging to protect the security posture of organisations, attackers are also benefiting from deepfakes, sophisticated phishing, and automation of malicious codes. To ensure the impact of AI on cybersecurity to be a net-positive, we need to pit good AI against bad AI. Point solutions enhanced with machine learning: Global cybersecurity has been built with point soluti

Resilient FY24, confident long-term outlook

Vp’s full year update highlights sector-leading results, once again benefiting from the diversity of its end markets and the quality of its specialist businesses. With results expected to be broadly in line with expectations, we trim our FY24 PBT forecast by c.5% to £39.0m, a shade below the FY23 outturn (£40.2m). We consider this an impressively resilient performance set against a mixed market backdrop. Under new leadership, a strategic refresh is underway and management is confident in long