Schroder Income Growth

SCF has outperformed the index over the long term and boasts a premium yield to the market…

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”

Schroder Income Growth

SCF has a strong track record of delivering income and capital growth…

Schroder Income Growth

Attractive income and growth prospects from a portfolio of UK companies…

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

Schroder Income Growth - Overview

Schroder Income Growth (SCF) aims to generate real income growth from a portfolio of primarily UK companies. Managed by Sue Noffke, who is supported by Matt Bennison and Andy Simpson, SCF typically consists of a portfolio of around 40 companies, selected without reference to any particular stylistic bias. The managers aim to ensure the majority of portfolio differentiation to the benchmark FTSE AllShare Index is driven by stock-specific factors. Presently yielding c. 4.0% (as of 24/01/2020), SCF

Holding something in reserve

It used to be said that in central London you were never more than six feet from a rat. Nowadays, the saying has been updated: you are never more than six feet from a Pret-aManger. Before Pret came McDonald’s, serving the same burgers in the same buns from London to Tokyo. Such was the ubiquitous nature of the fast food giant that in 1986 The Economist launched the ‘Big Mac Index’. Presently, this famous index of relative currency strength suggests sterling is seriously undervalued [1] . Sterlin

Ready for action

In our recent research, Measure for Measure, we discussed the importance of a manager’s activeness and the difficulties involved in gauging it. As we have highlighted before, the chance of generating alpha generally rises with how active a manager is, and the UK closed-ended universe has become significantly more active in response to the challenge of cheap passive products. In that article we took a look at a range of measures for assessing the ‘activeness’ of a manager and their strengths and

Schroder Income Growth - Overview

Schroder Income Growth (SCF) aims to provide real growth of income, in excess of inflation, while growing capital for investors. The long-serving lead manager, Sue Noffke, invests primarily in above-average yielding UK equities, but also has the capability to invest up to 20% of the portfolio outside the UK. Over the past five years the trust has been an impressive performer, outperforming the benchmark (FTSE All Share), the AIC UK Equity Income peer group and the open-ended peer group. Despite

Best in class

Today, we introduce our investment trust ratings. According to the quantitative screens we have selected in an attempt to highlight the best performers in the closed-ended universe, the trusts discussed here have been the best in their classes over the last five years. We have selected trusts using two different sets of criteria, aiming to identify the top performers for capital growth and for achieving a high and growing income. There are many rating systems for open-ended funds, but no quantit

The search for discounted yield

We have for some time argued that traditional equity income funds are too heavily dependent on a narrow range of stocks, and that the stocks themselves are perhaps looking overstretched in terms of the dividends they pay compared to their underlying earnings. In November last year we published research showing that 25.1% of the capital in the AIC UK Equity Income sector is invested in just ten stocks, and across those companies the average dividend cover is 1.17x. We found that open-ended funds

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.

BlackRock World Mining

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

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.

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