Schroder Asian Total Return (ATR) fund managers Robin Parbrook and King Fuei Lee are considering adding some defensive hedges to protect the portfolio from increasingly expensive Asian stock markets showing “signs of AI-related froth”. Their cautious tone came in annual results showing the £567m investment trust made an underlying return of 14.2% last year with shareholders receiving a 19.3% total return as the share price discount narrowed. However, these trailed the MSCI Asia Pacific ex-Japan index which returned 20.6%. Underweight positions to the rally in South Korea and in AI beneficiaries more broadly such as China’s Alibaba accounted for most of the underperformance, not helped by continued weakness in Chinese consumer stocks. Over three years, the trust leads the MSCI index with a 57% total shareholder return versus the benchmark’s 52%.
Picton Property Income (PCTN) delays the release of its annual results that were due on 21 May to give the REIT time to choose a preferred bidder from the short list of proposals it has received during its strategic review and formal sale process.
Schroder European Real Estate (SERE) has had to make a €2.5m adjustment to net asset value after discovering that expenses on vacant properties from 2021 to 2024 had been incorrectly recorded as recoverable from tenants. This knocked 1.9 euro cents off NAV per share, reducing it to 117.3 cents at 31 October. Over the last quarter of 2025, the first in its financial year, NAV fell €3.4m to €153.3m at 31 December with NAV per share declining 2.5 cents from 119.2 cents at 30 September to 116.7 cents at year-end. Earnings cover for the first interim dividend of 1.48 cents per share weakened to 90%, down from 94% in October, giving SERE an 8.3% yield on 16 March. The shares fell 2.4% to 61.5p.
LondonMetric Property (LMP), which has already expressed its interest in Picton Property, announces a £1.5bn refinancing of most of its unsecured debts that will save it around £6m a year and remove the risk of refinancing on to higher rates until 2029.
Palace Capital (PCA), the formerly winding-down UK REIT that activist Lakestreet took control of in January, indicates a dividend cut is coming, saying it will no longer make uncovered distributions. However, the latest payment is held at 3.5p per share to use up some undistributed income.
RM Infrastructure Income (RMII) has published a circular for the £14m tender offer announced earlier this month, its third return of capital under its wind-down. A general meeting of shareholders will be held on 24 April.
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