April marked another strong month for income-focused investment trusts. Nearly GBP 200 million flowed into closed-end funds through additional listings, with a pronounced bias towards dividend-paying funds.
Various traditional and alternative funds were issuing more shares into the market. Traditional funds included City of London (CTY) and Finsbury Growth & Income (FGT). Alternative funds included Income & Growth VCT (IGV) and Matrix Income & Growth VCT (MIX).
The largest equity placing in April was announced by John Laing Infrastructure (JLIF), and has raised over GBP 30 million. The duo in charge--Andrew Charlesworth and David Marshall--currently run almost GBP 470 million, which is invested in infrastructure projects and aims to generate a 6% dividend yield on the issue price. This is an asset class in which we have seen an increasing appetite, for its stable cash flows and diversification from more traditional funds.
Redemptions and Repurchases
Conversely Dexion Absolute has accepted redemption offers for its EUR (DABE) and USD (DABU) share classes totalling 89% and 65% of the issued shares, respectively; representing over GBP 200 million in redemptions.
Shareholders have also tendered GBP 43 million over April with the largest tender of GBP 14 million by investors in private equity fund Dunedin Enterprise (DNE). The fund currently trades at a hefty discount exceeding 34%, compared with a one-year average of 37%.
Some GBP 80 million left investment trusts via repurchases, spread fairly equally across a range of different funds and asset classes.
We have also seen a steady flow of share purchases from non-executive directors across a wide variety of funds.