In QuotedData’s morning briefing 25 January 2024:
- Invesco Asia (IAT) says that from 1 May 2024, its two co-portfolio managers will swap roles, with Fiona Yang taking the lead from Ian Hargreaves, but will both continue to work very closely together on the portfolio. The directors say that they have been impressed by Fiona’s contribution over the past five years and are pleased to support her promotion. Separately, the board says that it will stepup its buyback activity as the average discount has been above 10% recently.
- Steven Marshall, chairman and co-founder of Cordiant Digital Infrastructure (CORD), bought 1m shares in the company at 73p yesterday, This took his total stake to 7,927,957 shares. The shares held by directors and the manager (either directly or by its staff) now represent 1.34% of the company.
- Tiny GRIT Investment Trust (not to be confused with Grit Real Estate) has reorganised its share capital. Each existing ordinary share of 2.5 pence will be sub-divided into one ordinary share of 0.1 pence and 1 deferred share of 2.4 pence. These will trade separately on the stock exchange.
- GCP Asset Backed Income (GABI) says that a scheduled repayment on a student housing loan accounting for 5.7% of its portfolio was not received. The manager is in discussions concerning a short-term extension to enable an orderly sale of the operational assets, which it says are performing well; repayment is still expected in 2024. At 31 December 2023, GCP Asset Backed Income had fully repaid its revolving credit facility (which was £30.1m drawn at 30 September 2023) and had cash of £30.9m.
- AEW UK REIT (AEWU) has reported a 2.3% drop in NAV to 103.53p per share for the quarter to 31 December 2023. This equates to a -0.44% NAV total return for the period when the 2p dividend is taken into account. The value of its portfolio fell in value by 1.6% to £212.0m – mainly due to a large valuation drop in two of its leisure assets (a nightclub in Cardiff and cinema in Southend) due to trading pressures associated with cost-of-living. The dividend was once again uncovered, with earnings for the period coming in at 1.83p. Two tenants going into administration (Wilko and CJ Services) accounted for 0.28p in earnings. LTV was 36.6%, with low fixed debt costs of 2.959% until 2027.
- Workspace (WKP) has announced that chief executive Graham Clemett will retire during 2024, once a successor has been appointed and an appropriate handover completed. Chairman Duncan Owen will lead the search for his successor.