Over the six months ended 31 July 2015, Mercantile managed to generate a return on net assets of 15.0%, 3.9% more than the 11.1% return posted by the FTSE All-Share ex FTSE100 and Investment Companies Index that the fund uses as a benchmark. the return to shareholders was 15.6%.
They have paid 20p in dividends so far in this accounting year – that’s up 25% from the equivalent payments last year but they say they are in the process of smoothing out the dividends they pay over the course of the whole year and so this implies they might pay a smaller final dividend than last year.
The biggest contributions to relative performance were the fund’s holdings in the beverages sector, driven by the holding in Fever-Tree, the owner and distributor of premium brand mixers, and being underweight the mining sector as these companies continue to struggle with weakening metal prices.
MRC : Mercantile outperforming in 2015