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…

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

The importance of buying earners*

March is traditionally considered ‘ISA season’, when UK investors focus on their annual ISA allowance and are encouraged to ‘use it or lose it’. As we highlighted in our article last year, investment trusts within ISAs are an excellent way to benefit from the power of compounding over the long term, without worrying about the tax consequences of whether you are receiving capital gains or dividend income. Our analysis last year showed that the top ten compounding trusts – since Personal Equity P

City of London Investment Trust - Overview

City of London’s (CTY) objective is to provide long-term growth in income and capital. Bearing in mind the fact that this trust has the longest track record of providing annual dividend increases in the investment trust sector – 53 consecutive years – it is also true that a rising level of dividend income is a very important part of what CTY aims to provide for shareholders. In the context of this very long track record having been developed by the company, it is reassuring for investors that t

Facilities by ADF - FY23A Results – Trailer-blazing in pursuit of excellence

ADF released FY23A results in-line with our forecasts and the February trading update. As previously highlighted, H1/23A saw record profits whilst H2/23A was disrupted by the now-resolved strike action. The business is ramping back up at the start of FY24E and returning to normal utilisation in H2/24E. Our newly released FY25E forecasts show that with a full year of business as usual, revenues increase c.20% to £56.8m and Adj PAT jumps c.50% to £7.5m. FCF similarly increases to £7.5m, putting th

The Merchants Trust - Celebrating its 135th anniversary

The Merchants Trust’s (MRCH’s) manager, Simon Gergel at Allianz Global investors, is very excited about the number of reasonably priced opportunities available in the UK market. Also, good income generation from the trust’s portfolio of high-quality companies with robust fundamentals enabled MRCH to record another consecutive dividend increase in FY24; it now has a 42-year track record. The trust’s attractive 5.1% dividend yield is one of the highest in the 19-strong AIC UK Equity Income sector

BlackRock Energy and Resources Income

BERI has raised its dividend target as secular tailwinds gather…

Mercantile

MRC’s performance has recovered, yet the trust remains at a wide discount…

BlackRock Smaller Companies

A focus on fundamentals may act as a catalyst for BRSC to bounce back…

Arbuthnot Banking Group+ (ARBB, House Stock at 1,065p) - Profitability to normalise in FY24F

Bluefield Solar Income Fund – Fundamentals shine despite discount

The manger comments that, in common with the other trusts in the renewable energy sector, the last six months have continued what has been a challenging period for the Bluefield Solar Income Fund (BSIF). It adds that the trust’s ongoing fundamental performance has failed to reverse a steady slide in its share price which began back in May 2023. Despite this, it says the company has continued to deliver solid NAV growth and market-leading shareholder distributions thanks to a range of contractual

Henderson Far East Income - Repositioning to raise total returns

Henderson Far East Income (HFEL) has consistently delivered on its objective to provide a rising dividend. However, like many investors, HFEL’s managers overestimated the potential for a post-pandemic rebound in China. The trust’s resultant overweight to Chinese consumer and other cyclicals led to a fall in portfolio revenues and underperformance in the financial year ended 31 August 2023 (FY23). With a view to improving future returns, HFEL’s board has since indicated an increased willingness t

Regional REIT - Performing as expected ahead of refinancing

In a challenging market, Regional REIT’s (RGL’s) FY23 operational and financial performance was robust, in line with expectations and previous guidance. Investor focus remains on the company’s loan to value (LTV) reduction and bond refinancing plans, explored in detail in our previous note and RGL will provide an update on this in due course.

AGBA - A transformational deal

On 18 April, AGBA announced a surprise deal to acquire 100% of Triller Corp, a global AI-driven social video platform, in an all-stock transaction. Triller is privately-owned but has been independently valued at US$3.2bn. AGBA’s management is using a US$4bn valuation for the combined entity, in which AGBA shareholders will own 20% and Triller shareholders 80%. Triller recorded FY23 revenues of US$45m on 450m user accounts and 2.2m creators but is loss-making. In FY23, AGBA reported revenues of U

Princess Private Equity Holding - Introducing a well-defined buyback policy

Princess Private Equity Holding’s (PEY’s) 12-month NAV total return (TR) to end-February 2024 was a modest 0.6% amid low exit activity across private equity (PE) markets. That said, if the pick-up in global M&A volumes witnessed earlier in 2024 continues, it should support PEY’s exit activity. This in turn would translate into improved returns if PEY delivers sizeable uplifts to previous carrying values upon exits, as it has done historically. In this context, we note that PEY has a good pipelin

Hybridan Small Cap Feast - 26 April 24

26th April 2024 A corporate client of Hybridan LLP ** Arranged by type of listing and date of announcement *** Alphabetically arranged **** Potential means Intention to Float (ITF) has been announced Dish of the day Admissions: Delistings: C4X Discovery Holdings (C4XD.L) has left AIM. What’s baking in the oven? ** Potential**** Initial Public Offerings: Reverse Takeovers: 16 April 2024: Electric Guitar (ELEG.L) Concurrent with its Admission to trading on AIM, Electric Guitar is proposing to acqu

Frenkel Topping - Resilient with strong growth potential

FY 2023 was a challenging year for Frenkel with higher interest rates encouraging clients to place money into lower margin money market funds. Despite this, sales grew +32% (supported by recurring revenue +9% and +51% in non-recurring), EBIT margins remained strong at 22% and adj. EPS grew +17% (taking into account the higher number of shares). FY 2024 has seen a solid start to transactional business and there is a strong pipeline of new FUM opportunities both of which support further growth. Wi

Top of the Pops

We reveal the winners of our investment trust ratings for 2024... Our ratings seek to reward closed-ended funds which deliver attractive and persistent performance characteristics in three categories which we think match up to broad goals investors usually have: long-term growth, income and growth, and high current income. This includes strong performance versus a fund’s underlying market, as well as attractive risk characteristics which we think suggests they could continue to be premium optio

PCI Pal - +25% FY23 revenue growth, FY24 growth of +28% reiterated

PCI Pal’s FY23 results show revenue growth of +25% to £14.9m, gross profit growth of +31% to £13.1m at a margin of 88%, and an outlook confirming robust momentum in H1 24. The FY23 results are as expected following the August trading update, and FY23 Total Annual Contract Value (TACV) is +23% yoy to £16.4m, with ARR +14% yoy to £12.6m due to £3.1m of contracts in deployment. We expect ARR will increase +35% and +31% to £17.0m and £22.2m in FY24 and FY25, as management lands and expands following