Manchester & London reports that, for the year ended 31 July 2016, its NAV increased by 19.8% which they compare to a 4.0% return on the Dow Jones U.K. Total Stock Market Total Return Index. The discount the Shares trade at to their Net Asset Value per Share has widened
by 2.2 per cent during the year and was 20.9 per cent at the year end. The Directors are proposing a final ordinary dividend per share of 1.85 pence and a final special dividend per share of 1.05 pence for the financial year 2016. This means that, on a per share basis, the dividends proposed or paid out in respect of the 2016 financial year total 2.25 pence as ordinary dividends and 11.11 pence as special dividends. On a total ordinary and special basis, these dividends are over 122.7 per cent higher than the total dividends paid in respect of the 2015 financial year.
The manager breaks down the performance as follows:
Technology 12.3%
Consumer Goods 8.2%
Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals 1.9%
Other (0.5%)
21.9%
In technology, holdings in Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Facebook Inc. contributed 3.1 per cent, 2.8 per cent and 1.6 per cent respectively to performance. ARM Holdings Plc (which was acquired by SoftBank Group) contributed 0.9 per cent to performance, Microsoft Corp. 0.7 per cent, Paypal Holdings Inc. 0.6 per cent, Apple Inc. 0.3 per cent, Yahoo Inc. (which was largely driven by their stake in Alibaba Group) 0.9 per cent and Syngenta AG 0.6 per cent. Fund holdings in the sector also made positive contributions with 0.3 per cent from Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc and 0.7 per cent from Polar Capital Technology Trust Plc.
The only material negative contributors were TomTom NV (-0.4 per cent) and Windeln.de AG (-0.3 per cent); the latter was disposed of during the year.
In consumer, the main positive contributors to performance were Heineken NV, which contributed 2.1 per cent to portfolio performance, Davide Campari-Milano Spa 1.3 per cent, Beiersdorf AG 1.2 per cent and Unilever Plc 1.0 per cent. The WhiteWave Foods Co (which was acquired by Nestle SA) contributed 0.8 per cent. They also had smaller positive contributions from Pernod Ricard SA, SABMiller Plc and Svenska Cellulosa AB. The only material negative contributor was Jimmy Choo Plc (-0.4 per cent), which was disposed of during the year.
Key positive contributors from the healthcare sector included GlaxoSmithKline Plc, which contributed 1.3 per cent to portfolio performance, Baxalta Inc. (which was acquired by Shire Plc) 1.0 per cent, Worldwide Healthcare Trust Plc 0.5 per cent and Smith and Nephew Plc 0.4 per cent. Negative contributors included Shire Plc (0.7) per cent, Mallinckrodt Plc (0.3) per cent (which was disposed of during the year), AstraZeneca Plc (0.2) per cent and Spire Healthcare Group Plc (0.3) per cent.
MNL : Manchester & London performance improves