Trusts, ETFs & Funds

Trusts, ETFs & Funds equity research

Explore the latest equity research for companies within the Trusts, ETFs & Funds sector. Funds in this sector provide investment opportunities via equity and non-equity investment trusts, as well as exchange-traded funds.

01 Apr 20

A seismic shift in the way we live and work

The Coronavirus pandemic is a human tragedy of vast proportions – as well as the terrible human toll, COVID-19 has led to economies across the globe going into physical lockdown and financial freefall. Entire populations are adapting to the “stay at home” edict, to safeguard the vulnerable – and some of these changes will lead to long-lasting or perhaps permanent changes in the way we live or work. This note describes some of our client companies whose business models are well adapted to these changes, or who might see a change in long-term structural demand.

Companies: AMO BGO FDM GAMA KAPE LOOP TERN ZOO

01 Apr 20

THE MONTHLY April 2020

Companies: AVO AGY ARBB ARIX BUR CMH CLIG DNL GDR HAYD PCA PIN PHP RE/ RECI RMDL STX SHED VTA

02 Mar 20

THE MONTHLY March 2020

Much of the UK’s privatisation programme took place between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s: subsequent sales have been few. Undoubtedly, privatisation attracted many private investors to the market, many for the first time.

Companies: AVO AGY ARBB ARIX BUR CLIG DNL FLTA GDR NSF PCA PIN PXC PHP RE/ RECI RMDL STX SCE SIXH TRX SHED VTA

26 Feb 20

Mixture of strong and weak activity in 2019

Burford recently released its first-ever trading statement, covering cash activity in 2019. Group-wide commitments set a new record of $1.57bn, a 24% increase. Overall deployments were almost flat compared with 2018, at £1.07bn. In both, the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) and fund arrangements increased their share. It was, however, a quiet second half for realisations on-balance sheet in the core litigation finance business. 2019 profits will be lower than in 2018, with Burford indicating that net realised gains will be ca.$20m-$30m lower than in 2018 and net unrealised gains ca.$50m-$70m lower.

Companies: Burford Capital

27 Mar 20

LIBERUM: Alternatives Daily: VOF | SUPR | COVID-19 | Insider Buying

VinaCapital Vietnam Opportunity Fund - Strong pipeline of private equity investmentsSupermarket Income REIT - Rent reviews result in 1.3% uplift to annualised rental incomeCOVID-19 Updates - Assessing the impactInsider Buying - Management seeing buying opportunities

Companies: VINACAPITAL VIETNAM OPPORTUN

01 Apr 20

Change is a coming

Following an excellent year of performance during 2019 (a net asset value (NAV) total return of 27.5%), Herald Investment Trust (HRI) has seen its discount widen and the value of its portfolio companies fall since the outbreak of covid-19.

Companies: Herald Investment Trust

02 Apr 20

Trust in biotech

The biotechnology sector is proving to be relatively resilient in this COVID-19 related market sell-off. International Biotechnology Trust (IBT) adopts a conservative approach to investing in what can be a quite volatile, if rewarding, sector. It has fared better than competing funds in this environment.

Companies: International Biotechnology Trust

21 Oct 19

Quarterly Research Outlook Autumn 2019

Following continued delays of a Brexit agreement, few sectors within the UK market have remained attractive to investors despite low valuations. One sector which has continued to outperform despite the political drama has been the UK video gaming sector (henceforth UK gaming), which we are fans of. We believe a combination of sector-leading growth, strong cash conversion and timely cyclical positioning support our positive view on the UK video gaming sector.

Companies: ABBY AMS ANX ARS ATYM AVON BLVN PIER BUR CGS CAML CDM CSRT TIDE CYAN DTG DEMG ELM EMR FPO FDEV GTLY GENL GHH GRI GEEC GKP HMI HAYD HEAD HILS HTG HUR IBPO IOG INDI JHD JOG KAPE KEYS KWS KCT KGH LAM LIT LOK MACF MANO MOD OXIG PCA PANR APP SRE PHC PMO RBW RMM RBGP REDD RSW RNO ROR SUS SCPA SEN SHG SOLG SOM SUMO TM17 INCE TWD TRAK TRI VNET VTC ZOO ZTF

07 Jan 20

Burford Capital

Positive corporate governance developments

Companies: Burford Capital

10 Jan 20

THE MONTHLY January 2020

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is due to publish its most up-to-date survey on share ownership in mid-January, which identifies the beneficial owners and decision- makers of the stock market. Hardman & Co has worked together with the share analysis service, Argus Vickers, to jointly produce its own survey, which anticipates the conclusions of the ONS survey but goes into much greater detail. Our work does not use a sample of 200 quoted companies as the ONS historically has, but rather includes everyUK quoted company. The ONS samples share registers every two years; our study uses six-monthly data points. Our survey also extends to shareholders on NEX; the ONS does not.

Companies: AVO AGY ARBB BUR CMH CLIG DNL FLTA GDR MCL NSF PCA PIN PHP RECI RMDL SCE SIXH SHED VTA

02 Apr 20

Trust in biotech

The biotechnology sector is proving to be relatively resilient in this COVID-19 related market sell-off. International Biotechnology Trust (IBT) adopts a conservative approach to investing in what can be a quite volatile, if rewarding, sector and has fared better than its peers in this environment.

Companies: International Biotechnology Trust

30 May 18

LIBERUM: Gresham House* - Inflection point reached

Completion of the FIM acquisition is a milestone achievement. It accelerates profitability and delivers scale, taking AUM to well over the all-important £1bn mark.

Companies: Gresham House

01 Apr 19

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 which raised EUR 148m, around 40% more than the target. Another indication of interest in this sector was John Laing Environmental Assets successfully placing around 22m of its shares that were being sold by The John Laing Pension Trust. Finally, with regard to news in this sector, the close of the US Solar Fund* IPO had to be put back after just falling short of its target by the original closing date – closing is now expected to take place on 10 April.

Companies: TRIG BBOX UKW GRP ALF ELTA ESP FAIR BCPT BREI HTCF MERI UKCM

14 May 19

Understanding the deepest discounts

At Hardman and Co, we try to answer the questions of why to invest in a company and what the risks are in doing so. For many investors, simply having a deep discount to NAV is a good enough answer to the first question. However, investors need to appreciate the risks and, in particular, the reasons why the shares are at a discount. Having understood those risks, investors need to be convinced that there is a catalyst for change on the part of the manager and how long (if at all) it will take for market sentiment to reflect this in a lower discount. In this report, we examine the companies with the largest discounts and review those very issues.

Companies: ADAM BC12 BGHL CGI HAN JZCP LMS MPO MVI MHN NSI NAS OCI PSHD RSE SIHL TFG TPOU UTL VIN ELTA ELX

09 Jul 19

Petersen appeals to investors

Burford has made a double announcement about the Petersen case. Argentina had appealed to the US Supreme Court over the decision about where the case will be heard. The Court has declined to hear the appeal, so proceedings will take place in the US. Burford has also sold another 10% of its entitlement in the case for $100m; implying a market price of $1bn, ca.25% above the value implied by the smaller July 2018 transaction. Additional disclosure is that the sale took place to 11 institutional investors, with 40 having participated in the market now. This adds credibility to the valuation generated by the transactions to date.

Companies: Burford Capital

11 May 18

Harbourvest - 10 years of success and the future of Private Equity

02 Apr 20

AIQ Ltd's Graham Duncan details acquisition of Alchemist Codes

18 Nov 19

ROBO Global team discuss its focus on innovation and key developments in AI

01 Apr 20

Trident Resources: A new growth-focused diversified mining royalty company

23 Jan 20

Polar Capital upbeat on the outlook for the healthcare sector

01 Apr 20

Supermarket Income REIT reports growing rental income as it maintains dividend

22 Jan 20

Baker Steel Resources Trust offer investors a UK tungsten opportunity

23 Mar 20

Zoetic reports 'ongoing enthusiasm for its products' despite market challenges

07 Feb 20

Executive interview - Securities Trust of Scotland

16 Mar 20

Executive interview - Seneca Income & Growth Trust

21 Jan 20

Global focus for The Brunner Investment Trust

27 Feb 20

Plenty more deals in the pipeline for Greencoat UK Wind PLC says manager

22 Jan 20

BB Healthcare steadfast after rollercoaster 2019 for healthcare investment sector

25 Feb 20

Emmerson PLC CEO highlights 'significant' cost savings for gas & power supply at Khemisset

05 Mar 20

Gresham House (GHE) FY19 results and review

Latest Content

AIQ Ltd's Graham Duncan details acquisition of Alchemist Codes

AIQ LD

02 Apr 20

Trust in biotech

International Biotechnology Trust

02 Apr 20
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Trust in biotech

The biotechnology sector is proving to be relatively resilient in this COVID-19 related market sell-off. International Biotechnology Trust (IBT) adopts a conservative approach to investing in what can be a quite volatile, if rewarding, sector and has fared better than its peers in this environment.

International Biotechnology Trust

02 Apr 20
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Morning Note – 2 April 2020

AVCT FLO ODX TRCS KRM

02 Apr 20
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Genesis Emerging Markets Fund - Depressed sentiment belies bright outlook

Launched in 1989, Genesis Emerging Markets Fund (GSS) is one of the first UK-listed funds focused on investing in equities in emerging and developing countries. Its primary objective is to deliver long-term capital growth through a bottom-up approach to investing in high-quality companies with sustainable earnings growth. GSS has a solid performance track record, and has outperformed its benchmark over one, three, five and 10 years to end-February. Emerging markets equities have suffered a significant setback in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the fund’s discount to NAV is wider than average, which may present an opportunity for long-term investors.

Genesis Emerging Markets Fund