The UK economy delivered a surprisingly solid performance in the first quarter with 0.3% growth in March lifting gross domestic product by 0.6% in the first three months of the year, led by a rebound in retailing and construction. The Office for National Statistics said there were signs that consumers and businesses had brought forward […]
Lowland (LWI), the £372m UK equity income trust running a higher-than-normal allocation to companies outside the FTSE 100, returned 7.1% in the six months to 31 March but lagged the FTSE All-Share as blue-chip stocks once again led the way. The benchmark index rose 8.9% with shareholders in the Janus Henderson managed trust receiving 6.8% […]
Xtrackers’ recent launch of two German-listed global active ETFs bucked the trend for lower-risk actively managed exchanged-traded funds in Europe. Artur Stoll, product specialist at DWS, the German fund manager behind the ETF provider, said Xtrackers’ Global Equity Top Active UCITS ETF (XTAX) and Global Growth Leaders Active UCITS ETF (XGLA) had opted for “tracking […]
Schroder Income Growth (SCF), the £228m UK equity income trust run by Schroder’s Sue Noffke, matched the FTSE All-Share’s 18.9% total return in the six months to 28 February as the shares narrowed their discount to asset value, although the portfolio’s underlying return of 17.4% lagged slightly on account of artificial intelligence fears weighing on […]
Scottish Mortgage Trust (SMT) has confirmed its $1.25trn (£920bn) valuation of SpaceX and said it does not yet know what restrictions will apply to its $3.94bn (£2.98bn) investment after the Elon Musk group’s possible record-breaking flotation this summer. There has been intense speculation about the valuation of the space technology giant since its merger with […]
3i Infrastructure (3IN) fund manager Bernardo Sottomayor says the “sustained” wave of capital pouring into the asset class underpins his confidence that the £3.4bn investment company can continue to sell investments at big premiums like it did with the £1bn sale of TCR in March. “Over recent years, significant capital has been raised by ‘core-plus’ […]
Pantheon International (PIN) has sold £224m ($300m) of fund investments in what the £1.6bn private equity fund called a “significant step forward” in its efforts to increase share buybacks and cut the 27% discount at which it stands. The sale of 42 fund exposures across 28 general partners (GPs), or external fund managers, represents 10.7% […]
LondonMetric Property (LMP) and Schroder Real Estate (SREI) have unveiled their joint all-share bid for Picton Property Income (PCTN) that they have been preparing since March, offering 0.190 LMP shares and 0.881 SREI shares per Picton share. At their respective closing prices of 187.7p and 48.3p last night, this values Picton at £403.4m or 78.2p […]
Blackstone has sold the 45,000 song Hipgnosis catalogue to Sony in a deal reported to be up to $4bn. The music rights business, renamed Recognition Music Group last year, includes former London-listed Hipgnosis Songs Fund which Blackstone took private with a $1.57bn bid in 2024. Singapore wealth fund GIC is backing Sony. The rebound in […]
The Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG) has sought to shore up shareholder support for its continuation vote next month with the £1.6bn InfraRed Capital fund saying it will raise £400m through disposals and modest debt issuance in the next 12 months, an increase of £300m on existing plans, in order to prioritise share buybacks to tackle […]
