Balanced Commercial Property

BCPT: active management, strategic assets, and monthly dividends…

Balanced Commercial Property

BCPT’s discount has reached extreme levels which look attractive on a long-term view...

Safe as warehouses

This year we have been running a series of articles looking at private assets and what they can offer in the midst of a surge of interest in them and inflows into funds investing in them. While there are lots of new assets coming into the mass market via investment trusts, there is a well-established private asset class which, judging by discounts, has fallen out of favour in recent years: commercial property. Below we highlight why we think this sector has a lot to offer for income, inflation p

How to protect your portfolio from inflation

Investment trusts investing in real assets have provided decent capital protection in recent decades. That said, it has to be recognised that share prices exhibit a relatively high correlation to equity markets over the short term. For example, during the initial coronavirus crash, share prices in the listed real assets sectors fell sharply in a general liquidation of the stock market, before staging a rapid recovery (an opportunity for the quick or the brave). However, over the long run it shou

BMO Commercial Property - Overview

BMO Commercial Property Trust (BCPT) owns a concentrated portfolio of commercial property located in areas of strong economic fundamentals. The dividend was suspended during the first lockdown but, due to rent collection remaining stronger than expected, has now been restored to c. 70% of its pre-crisis levels. With the shares trading on a 34.5% discount, the annualised dividend yield is now c. 5.5%. BCPT’s shares have traded on one of the widest discounts in the AIC UK commercial property sect

Get 'em while they're hot!

The period since our last review of investment trust discounts on 22 October has been a pretty good one for investors in trusts, and has seen the average discount on the sector narrow from 3.5% to under 1%. In fact, despite the tumultuous events of 2020, it is now almost as if the year had never happened: the universe entered the year on a discount of 1.5% and ended it on a discount of 1.1%, where it remains as of 07/01/2021.

Winners and losers in September

There was an eclectic mix of property companies to feature in the top price movers for September. Top of the tree was private rented sector and residential development specialist Sigma Capital Group, with a 34.2% rise. The group launched a £1bn joint venture with EQT Real Estate, the real estate platform of global investment firm EQT, to deliver 3,000 private rental homes in Greater London. Micro-cap investor Panther Securities also hit double-digit gains, while Macau Property Opportunities saw

BMO Commercial Property - Overview

BMO Commercial Property Trust (BCPT) owns a high-conviction portfolio of actively managed, core commercial property assets. Following the suspension of the dividend at the start of the pandemic, it has now been restored at the level of 3p annualised, which amounts to a 4.6% yield on the current share price. The dividend is paid monthly. BCPT has fallen onto one of the widest discounts in the commercial property sector, currently 46%. This may be due to its relatively high retail exposure and lim

BMO Commercial Property - Overview

BMO Commercial Property Trust (BCPT) owns a high conviction portfolio of actively managed, core commercial property assets. The dividend has been maintained at 6p per annum since its launch in 2005, which amounts to a yield of 5.1% on the current share price. Dividends are paid monthly. Manager Richard Kirby, who is a director of property funds at BMO Real Estate Partners, has been at the helm of the portfolio ever since it launched, and has maintained a concentrated portfolio of assets spread

Monthly Corporate Activity

Fundraising showed signs of picking up this month, and the focus was very much on the renewables sector. First of all there was Renewables Infrastructure Group, which launched a placing programme and an initial fundraising early in the month, targeting up to £170m. It ended up raising just over £300m, having received applications for nearly three times as many shares as were originally available, in an upsized and scaled back issuance. Greencoat Renewables also announced and completed a placing

LIBERUM: Plus500: Strategic progress pays dividends

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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

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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

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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

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Initial Equity Trading Comments - 19 February 2024

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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