City of London Investment Trust has published interim results covering the second half of 2015. Over this time the NAV total return was 1.5% which was slightly behind the average for the UK Equity Income Investment Trust sector (1.7%) but ahead of the UK Equity Income OEIC sector (0.8%) and the FTSE All- Share Index (-2.0%). So far this financial year, City of London has declared two interim dividends of 3.90p each. They say City of London’s diverse portfolio, strong cash flow and revenue reserves give the Board confidence that they will be able to increase its dividend for a fiftieth consecutive year and the Board will review the quarterly rate before the third interim is declared in March 2016.
City of London’s portfolio remained significantly under represented relative to the market average in the oil and mining sectors and this was an important contributor to relative performance. Among the biggest stock contributors held in the portfolio were Amlin (in non-life insurance which received a takeover bid), RELX (in media) and Berkeley (in housebuilding).
CTY : City of London confident of dividend increase