In QuotedData’s morning briefing 29 October 2020:
- Henderson International Income, managed by Ben Lofthouse, reported a -3% return on NAV and -5.2% return to shareholders for the year ending 31 August 2020. Both some way behind the trust’s MSCI World (ex UK) Index, which returned +8.1%. The board notes though that higher yielding shares within the index returned -7.0% – the market’s positive returns are focused on a narrow group of low/no yielding stocks. The dividend is 6p, up from 5.7p – supported by £917,000 of revenue reserves. The trust still has over £7m of these.
- Pershing Square’s issue of $500m senior notes is progressing with a coupon of 3.25%.
- Aberdeen Standard Asia Focus results for the year ended 31 July 2020 aren’t great – the trust returned -13.6% against -2.5% for its benchmark (MSCI AC Asia Pacific ex Japan Small Cap Index). The dividend was maintained at 19p. Gearing magnified market falls and the trust was overweight countries that struggled with COVID, such as India, and underweight China and Korea. It also had a significant weight in Hong Kong, which suffered from the political upheaval there (although the report puts more emphasis on the US revoking Hong Kong’s special trade status).
We also have news of acquisitions by Supermarket Income REIT and Octopus Renewables Infrastructure and a NAV update by Custodian REIT.