Year-to-date, Ecofin Global Utilities and Infrastructure Trust (EGL)’s manager, Jean-Hugues de Lamaze, has successfully avoided the fall-out from the bankruptcy of Californian utility PG&E, and the trust’s NAV performance has been very strong (a total return of 10.9% to the end of March 2019), outperforming both the MSCI World Utilities and S&P Global Infrastructure Indices.
Given this, EGL’s discount has been surprisingly wide, providing investors with attractive entry points. Jean-Hugues feels that EGL’s portfolio is well positioned to benefit from improving earnings quality and cash flow growth from its underlying holdings.
Developed markets utilities and other economic infrastructure exposure
EGL seeks to provide a high, secure dividend yield and to realise long-term growth, while taking care to preserve shareholders’ capital. It invests principally in the equity of utility and infrastructure companies which are listed on recognised stock exchanges in Europe, North America and other developed OECD countries. It targets a dividend yield of at least 4% per annum on its net assets, paid quarterly and can use gearing and distributable reserves to achieve this.
wdt_ID Year ended Share price total return (%) NAV total return (%) MSCI World Utilities TR. (%) MSCI World total return (%) MSCI UK total return (%)
1
31/03/18
2.9
(2.0)
(6.5)
1.8
(0.2)
2
31/03/19
19.6
21.6
22.9
12.6
7.6