Cordiant Digital Infrastructure (CORD) has announced plans to change its name to Corilis Digital Infrastructure, but for investors mulling over which investment company to vote for in QuotedData’s annual awards, there was bigger news earlier this month.

Emitel, the Polish broadcasting and telecoms platform that is CORD’s largest business at 46% of net asset value (NAV), won an important contract. This underlines the attraction of CORD, a £900m FTSE 250 investment company that is the UK’s only listed pure-play digital infrastructure fund. It has been shortlisted with three other funds in the “Best Alternative Assets” category of our Investors’ Choice awards taking place next month.

Warsaw-based Emitel, which is wholly owned by CORD after its acquisition in 2022, declared it had been chosen by Poland’s Office of Electronic Communications to build and operate the country’s next digital terrestrial television multiplex. 

This will offer eight free-to-air, high-definition channels with catch-up and on-demand interactive services. This comes at a time when Poland’s buoyant economy and rising household incomes are supporting strong growth in data usage and rising radio and TV audiences.

Emitel, which already operates Poland’s six existing digital multiplexes, has two years to upgrade and expand its network of 774 communications towers to ensure 95% national coverage for the new MUX-5 service. Having paid the regulator for the licence, it will run the contract until the end of 2033, recouping its costs and making a profit by charging the broadcasters using the platform.

In a briefing to City investors this month, Emitel anticipated the contract could help increase its earnings, or operating profits, after lease costs, by 11% a year from 441m Polish zloty (PLN) (£83.9m) to 700m PLN (£133.2m) by 2030.

Winterflood analyst Ashley Thomas pointed out that “while the MUX-5 contract award was incorporated into the Emitel five-year growth forecast, it is not currently reflected in the CORD NAV, which should provide a benefit in future quarters” when the frequencies are formally given to Emitel.

While Emitel is CORD’s biggest asset, the £1.1bn portfolio has five other investments, most notably CRA, a digital infrastructure platform in the Czech Republic; followed by Speed Fibre in Ireland; Datacenter United in Belgium; the Belgian Tower Company; and the Hudson Interconnect data centre in New York. 

Under fund manager Steven Marshall’s “buy and build” strategy, the investment company has generated a 14% underlying annual return since launch in February 2021, well ahead of its 9% target. That’s based on NAV per share growing from 98.1p to 146p at the last financial year-end at 31 March. 

Backed by its businesses’ long-term, inflation-linked contracts with blue-chip companies and governments, CORD’s semi-annual dividends have bloomed from 1p to 4.45p per share. At the financial year-end the pay-out was covered 1.7 times by operating profits after finance costs, tax and maintenance capital expenditure. 

The progress of the shares has been less smooth. Like many “alternative income” and infrastructure funds, CORD’s price fell as interest rates and inflation spiked after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. 

However, from a low of 62p in February 2024 the shares have almost doubled to 119p, having posted total shareholder returns of 43.1% and 24.6% in the past two financial years. The 3.8%-yielding shares stand close to a 20% discount to NAV, a valuation gap that should narrow as earnings and confidence in the assets continues to grow. 

Now is the time to have your say. Which investment trusts, fund managers and ETFs deserve to win? You decide in the Investors’ Choice Awards 2026. Vote here. The deadline is this Saturday 31 October.