Written by: Proactive

LSE:BSIF

Bluefield Solar Income Fund: dividends whatever the weather

Last updated: 08:01 29 Jan 2026 GMT

Snapshot

• Bluefield Solar Income confirms impact from govt indexation change
• Bluefield Solar Income Fund: The sun is shining on this dividend play
• Bluefield Solar Income pivot to IPP model ‘short-term pain’ for long-term gain
• Bluefield Solar Income Fund hits dividend target amid market headwinds

About the company

Bluefield Solar Income Fund is a pioneer in the renewable energy space. 

The company primarily targets utility-scale solar, wind and energy storage assets and portfolios on greenfield, industrial and/or commercial sites. It aims to deliver long-term stable dividends and has one of the most successful track records in the sector.

How it is doing

29 Jan 2026

Bluefield Solar Income Fund Ltd (LSE:BSIF) said the announcement this week from the government about indexation of subsidies will result in around a 2% or 2p per share reduction in its net asset value.

On Wednesday, 28 January 2026, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero published its response to the consultation and confirmed the intention to proceed with a switch from RPI to CPI-based indexation for both Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) and Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs).

The switch will be made in the next annual adjustment scheduled in April 2026, rather than in 2030 as originally planned.

This was anticipated by the investment trust in November, shortly after DESNZ first announced it was launching the indexation consultation.

23 Jan 2026

Bluefield Solar Income Fund Ltd (LSE:BSIF, FRA:5B3) said more than 90% of its 1.34GW development pipeline has received confirmed grid connection offers under the National Energy System Operator’s (NESO) reformed connection process.

The company secured Gate 2, Phase 1 offers on 660MW of projects, meaning they will be connected between 2026 and 2030, including around 540MW of solar PV and 120MW of battery storage.

08 Nov 2025

Bluefield Solar Income Fund (LSE:BSIF) managing partner James Armstrong talked with Proactive about the company’s decision to initiate a strategic review and formal sale process.

Armstrong explained the move follows extended consultation with shareholders and stems from Bluefield Solar’s continued share price discount to net asset value (NAV), which has persisted for over three years. Despite the fund’s strong performance since its IPO, the board concluded that “doing nothing is not an option”, citing the lack of a clear market catalyst for a re-rating.

Insight: Bluefield Solar Income Fund: The sun is shining on this dividend play

What the brokers say

22 Oct 2025

Bluefield Solar Income Fund’s (LSE:BSIF) proposed transition to an independent power producer (IPP) model would involve significant structural changes, RBC Capital Markets said, but more precise details on the pivot are still awaited. 

The new strategy, which follows the collapse of a recent sale process, was unveiled alongside the company’s full-year results yesterday and would include internalising investment manager Bluefield Partners and removing investment trust status

At this stage, with no details confirmed, the analysts supposed that a dividend cut and a capital raise to fund photovoltaic and battery energy storage system (BESS) developments would both be likely. 

Read more

What management says

30 Sep 2024

Bluefield Partners managing partner James Armstrong

Releasing results for the year to 30 June, 2024, Armstrong highlighted that despite facing some headwinds, including lower radiation levels and a slight dip in production, the fund successfully delivered an 8.8 pence per share dividend, which is one of the highest in the infrastructure sector. This translates to a dividend yield of around 8.3%, a highly attractive return for shareholders.

Story by Temie Laleye

Retirees with a £100,000 pension pot can now secure a higher guaranteed income than they could just a year ago, according to new figures from Standard Life.

Data from the firm’s Annuity Rates Tracker shows that annuity rates rose by 5.48 per cent during 2025.

This represents a 5.48 per cent increase compared with the December 2024 rate of 7.12 per cent, according to the Standard Life Annuity Rates Tracker

For someone retiring with a £100,000 pension pot, this rise means they could now secure an income of up to £7,510 a year, compared with £7,120 a year earlier.

While the annual increase may appear modest, over the course of retirement it adds up to a meaningful boost, delivering an estimated extra £7,000 to £9,000 in total lifetime income.

While the yearly increase may appear small, over the course of retirement it makes a meaningful difference, adding between £7,000 and £9,000 in extra total income across a retiree’s lifetime.

Pete Cowell, Head of Annuities at Standard Life, said: “Annuity rates have been trending upwards over the past couple of years, giving retirees a welcome boost.

Pensioner couple and retirement savings | Source: GETTY© GB News

“These latest figures show that the rates people can secure today are meaningfully higher than a year ago, offering something we know many retirees value: income certainty and the reassurance that their income will last for the rest of their lives.”

He added that annuities offer stability and long-term certainty during periods when market volatility can prove unsettling, helping people approach retirement with greater confidence.

Pension folder | Source: GETTY© GB News

A man aged 65 purchasing an annuity at the current 7.51 per cent rate could anticipate total income of approximately £150,000, while a woman of the same age might expect around £168,000.

Those willing to wait until 70 can access even better rates, with healthy individuals at that age securing 8.25 per cent.

This generates anticipated lifetime incomes of £130,000 for men and £148,000 for women.

Couple at laptop | Source: GETTY© GB News

While purchasing an annuity earlier typically results in greater overall lifetime income, the rates themselves climb as people age.

A 60-year-old in good health could obtain 6.74 per cent in December 2025, whereas someone a decade older would receive 8.25 per cent – meaning a 70-year-old with £100,000 would receive approximately £8,250 annually compared to £6,740 for the younger retiree.

Mr Cowell noted that many people are now considering combining annuities with drawdown options, creating a balance between guaranteed income for essential expenses and flexibility for other spending.

In just over 3 years the SNOWBALL expects to earn at least 10k in this calendar year and whilst this isn’t guaranteed, guess what, you get to keep all your hard earned.

Why and how investment trust discounts revert to the median

27 January 2026

Trustnet analyses historic discounts in three example sectors.

By Matteo Anelli

Deputy editor, Trustnet

Discounts have always been part of the appeal of investment trusts. Buying assets for less than their underlying value, often with a higher yield as a result, is an attractive proposition – especially for income-seeking investors. But discounts have moved from being a background feature of the market to something much more actively debated.

Boards are under increasing pressure to manage them, buybacks have become more common and activists such as Saba Capital have stepped in to force change. That has fuelled the idea that wide discounts are an opportunity in their own right. But is buying on a discount enough or does something else need to happen to make it pay off?

Below, with the help of QuotedData, Trustnet looks at some of the most discounted trusts 10 years ago in the IT UK Equity Income, IT Global and IT Renewables sectors and whether they have moved relative to the sector median until today.

At first glance, the data appears to support the idea of mean reversion. In each sector, discounts that once looked extreme are now much closer to the sector average. But James Carthew, head of investment company research at QuotedData, said apparent reversion masks a more important point.

“If something is consistently on a wide discount but there isn’t a good reason for it, then something will happen corporately or otherwise to bring that discount down,” he said. “They can deviate for a while, but at some point, something will happen to bring it back down again.”

In other words, discounts narrow because pressure builds, not because markets correct themselves – without a catalyst, a wide discount can persist for years.

UK equity income

The UK equity income chart shows a clear narrowing over the past 10 years, with all three trusts highlighted – Chelverton UK Dividend, Shires Income and Murray Income – now sitting much closer to the sector median than they did a decade ago. But the route to that convergence has been uneven, with style playing a major role.

UK Equity Income 3-month rolling average discounts for selected trusts

Source: QuotedData

“Chelverton is about small-cap. Murray Income is more about quality versus growth. Shires has an enormous small-cap bias,” Carthew said. When those styles fell out of favour, discounts widened. When conditions improved, they narrowed again.

Structure also mattered. “Shires is a relatively small trust as well. That makes it more illiquid and that tends to be a reason to trade on wider discounts,” he said. Illiquidity and gearing choices helped keep discounts wide for longer than investors might have expected.

Ultimately, two of the three trusts resolved their discounts through corporate action rather than patience. Murray Income is moving to Artemis, while Shires Income announced a merger with Aberdeen Equity Income earlier this month. “With Shires, we’ve now had the corporate action to try to narrow the discount,” Carthew said. In both cases, it was change that closed the gap, not time.

Global trusts

In the global sector, the pattern is similar but the drivers are clearer, with performance and reputation playing a bigger role.

IT Global 3-month rolling average discounts for selected trusts

Source: QuotedData

Monks is the standout example. Strong returns pushed it to a premium, before conditions turned and the discount widened again. “You get strong returns, it moves to a big premium, then when interest rates go up and growth sells off, performance weakens and the discount widens again,” Carthew said.

AVI Global Trust tells a different story. Solid, consistent performance has gradually improved sentiment, allowing the discount to narrow steadily over time. In this case, there was no single corporate event. The pressure came from results and credibility building over a long period.

Renewables

The renewables chart looks different. Here, discounts for individual trusts have tracked the sector median closely, with far less dispersion than in equity sectors. That is not because the forces driving them are largely outside the control of individual boards, Carthew explained.

IT Global 3-month rolling average discounts for selected trusts

Source: QuotedData

“It is much more sector-specific factors driving it rather than stock-specific ones,” he said. Power price assumptions, policy uncertainty and inflation have weighed on the entire sector.

Greencoat UK Wind, for example, was forced to cut forecasts after wind speeds came in lower than expected, yet its discount has not blown out as dramatically as some peers because it is seen as a large, liquid vehicle.

“Discounts in private equity, renewables and all that sort of stuff is persistent and really hard to fix,” Carthew said. When the problem is structural, there may be no obvious corporate lever to pull.

What moves discounts

Style cycles can help but they rarely resolve a discount on their own. Boards act when investors lose patience and, increasingly, that impatience is being amplified by activists.

“Saba has been a catalyst for change,” Carthew said. “Activists are useful in this context because they stimulate corporate activity. They are a normal, healthy part of the market.”

That does not mean activism is always aligned with long-term shareholder value. Carthew is critical of approaches that prioritise forcing outcomes over economic logic.

“A rational activist will buy something on a wide discount and accept an exit when it can get a decent value. Saba hasn’t been doing that,” he said. “It seems its motivation is not to narrow the discount and make a profit but to try to get certain management outcomes, which is not the logical thing for it to be doing for its shareholders.”

Even so, the presence of activists has changed behaviour. Boards are now more aware that doing nothing is no longer an option. As a result, the length of time a trust can remain on an extreme discount has shortened, said Carthew.

So is buying on a discount always worth it?

Making an investment in assets that you like while being able to buy them for less than they are worth is “one of the big attractions of investment companies”.

“Some trusts seem to always trade on discounts, so it doesn’t have much of an impact on your return if you buy at say a 10% discount and sell at the same level,” Carthew noted.

However, for a medium- to long-term investor, returns mostly come from the move in the net asset value, as shareholders in CQS Natural Resources found out last summer.

Those who cashed out their shares to make 10%-15% from the discount closing lost out on what has been an 85% rise in the share price on the back of a soaring NAV since then.

“Buying a trust just because it is trading on a wide discount is rarely a good idea”, Carthew concluded.

One to watch.

Murray Income is moving to Artemis

The SNOWBALL will monitor the change of Investment House as Artemis has outstanding performance with Income Funds.

Whilst there are good discounts to NAV in the Watch List shares, the SNOWBALL will not own ETF’S but

GREENCOAT UK WIND PLC

RO Indexation, Net Asset Value and Dividend Policy

Updated Net Asset Value / Net Asset Value per share

£2,882.4 million / 133.5 pence

Renewables Obligation Indexation Consultation

The UK Government has now published the result of its consultation on changes to the inflation indexation of the Renewables Obligation (“RO”) scheme.

From 1 April 2026, the RO scheme will now be indexed at the Consumer Price Index (“CPI“) rather than the Retail Price Index (“RPI“).

Updated Net Asset Value

In light of the consultation outcome, the Company announces that its unaudited Net Asset Value as of 31 December 2025, updated solely for changes to the RO scheme, would be £2,882.4 million (133.5 pence per share). This represents a reduction of 2.6 pence per share, which is in line with the previous guidance provided on 11 November 2025 and having reflected the outturn of 2025 CPI.

An updated December 2025 Factsheet is available on the Company’s website, http://www.greencoat-ukwind.com.

Dividend Policy and 2026 Dividend Target

The Company has been reviewing its dividend policy in line with the range of potential outcomes from the RO Indexation Consultation. The Company has, for 12 consecutive years, increased its dividend by RPI or better, from a 6 pence dividend per share at IPO to 10.35 pence in respect of 2025. Dividend progression has been underpinned by strong cashflow generation.

The principal instrument from which the Company derives explicit RPI cashflow linkage is the RO scheme, which will now be indexed to CPI. The Company’s Contracts for Differences instruments also have explicit CPI linkage. The Board has therefore determined that its dividend policy will now be to aim to provide shareholders with an annual dividend that increases in line with CPI inflation.

Accordingly, the Company announces an increase in the target dividend for 2026 to 10.7 pence per share in line with CPI for December 2025 of 3.4%. The Company’s forward looking dividend cover expectations remain robust and are substantially unchanged.

For the avoidance of doubt, the quarterly interim dividend of 2.59 pence per share with respect to the quarter ended 31 December 2025 remains unchanged.

£500 buys 595 shares in this 7.3%-yielding REIT!

Got a small lump sum to invest ? Here’s one real estate investment trust (REIT) offering a chunky payout to start generating a passive income overnight.

Posted by Zaven Boyrazian, CFA

Published 28 January

SUPR

You’re reading a free article with opinions that may differ from The Motley Fool’s Premium Investing Services.

Even with UK shares generating phenomenal returns in 2025, there are still plenty of cheap real estate investment trusts (REITs) offering generous dividend yields in 2026. And among these businesses stands Supermarket Income REIT (LSE:SUPR) with a payout of 7.3%.

That means for every £100, investors can earn roughly £7.30 in annual passive income. And at its current share price, investors can snap up 595 shares, generating an income of £36.60 overnight.

Should you buy Supermarket Income REIT plc shares today?

Before you decide, please take a moment to review this report first. Despite ongoing uncertainties from Trump’s tariffs to global conflicts, Mark Rogers and his team believe many UK shares still trade at substantial discounts, offering savvy investors plenty of potential opportunities to learn about.

So is this a screaming buy for income investors?

Please note that tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future. The content in this article is provided for information purposes only. It is not intended to be, neither does it constitute, any form of tax advice.

The bull case

As its name suggests, Supermarket Income REIT owns and manages a portfolio of supermarket and grocery properties that are leased out to some of the largest retailers across the UK and Europe.

Since leases are locked in for decades rather than a handful of years, management enjoys significant long-term revenue transparency. And by implementing annual contractual uplifts, the group’s able to generate a predictable and inflation-resistant income stream that’s paved the way for seven consecutive years of payout hikes.

Needless to say, that’s definitely an encouraging trait for income investors. And with management using its financial strength and cash flows to fund further property acquisitions, the business is steadily expanding its commercial real estate empire.

So is this a no-brainer?

The bear case

The company’s balance sheet remains in good shape. Its loan-to-value ratio does sit at 31%, but the cash flow coverage of its interest obligations remains a very healthy 3.8 times. And management is using this strength to borrow more money as a funding mechanism for its property acquisition pipeline.

However, there are still two primary challenges. The first is that management faces a series of debt maturities over the coming years that might require refinancing or asset disposals to cover. The second is that with grocery retail profit margins getting squeezed by higher labour costs and inflation, rent affordability risk’s on the rise.

With this business only typically dealing with industry titans such as Tesco, the risk of late rental payments seems low. But rent growth could stall as tenants renegotiate slower uplifts when leases are up for renewal. And could have a significant impact on this REIT’s long-term cash flows.

What’s the verdict?

Looking at its latest results, with cash flows gobbled up by interest on outstanding loans, dividend coverage is exceptionally tight. In fact, it stands at 0.98 times as of June 2025. In other words, the company has begun paying out more to shareholders than it’s bringing in, albeit by a small amount.

Over the short term, that’s not necessarily a problem if cash flows later rebound. But in the long run, without improvement, it’s unsustainable. And it does potentially put this stock’s tasty 7.3% yield at risk.

Is it a risk worth considering ? For some income investors seeking defensive dividends, it might be. But there are other REITs out there with similar levels of payout that have much stronger dividend coverage. With that in mind, I think these other stocks are more tempting for my passive income portfolio today.

The share is xd today, so if you buy, you do not earn the dividend.

With a small amount of capital, some Trusts have a DRIP scheme that allows you to re-invest your dividends at nil cost. Currently SUPR does not have a Dividend Re-investment Plan.

It’s been a good year to be invested in REIT’s.

The general trading plan is to be invested when interest rates fall and exit, unless the yield is superior, when interest rates start to rise.

NextEnergy Solar Fund Limited

(“NESF” or “the Company”)

 Government Response to Renewable Obligation Certificate and Feed in Tariff Consultation

NextEnergy Solar Fund, a leading specialist investor in solar energy and energy storage, notes today’s UK Government Response to the formal consultation regarding the change to the inflation indexation of Renewable Obligation Certificate (“ROC”) and Feed-in-Tariffs (“FiT”) which impacts the Company.

The Government has confirmed it intends to pursue Option 1 – an immediate switch to CPI indexation from RPI – which means the UK Government would change the inflation measure for ROC buy-out prices and FiT prices from RPI to CPI, effective from April 2026.

As reported in the Company’s interim results, the impact to NESF as at its 30 September 2025 Net Asset Value (“NAV”) will be as follows:

Estimated Impact on NAV per Ordinary Share	Estimated % impact on NAV
c. -2p	c. -2%

A further update will be provided in February 2026 on the impact on NAV per Ordinary Share when the Company releases its Q3 NAV & Operating Update as at 31 December 2025.

Ross Grier, Chief Investment Officer of NextEnergy Capital said:

“The NextEnergy Solar Fund Board and NextEnergy Capital are grateful to the civil servants for engaging so proactively with the concerns we raised regarding this consultation.  Whilst the selected option is the less disruptive of the two proposed, we remain disappointed that the Government is taking steps that are expected to harm investor confidence in Great British infrastructure at a time when we need more capital than ever to deliver the energy transition in a timely fashion.”

GREENCOAT UK WIND PLC

(the “Company”)

Net Asset Value and Dividend Announcement

Net Asset Value / Net Asset Value per share	£2,939.1 million / 136.1 pence
Dividend / Dividend per share	£55.9 million / 2.59 pence

The Company announces that its unaudited Net Asset Value as of 31 December 2025 is £2,939.1  million (136.1 pence per share).

The Company’s December 2025 Factsheet is available on the Company’s website, http://www.greencoat-ukwind.com.

The Company also announces a quarterly interim dividend of 2.59 pence per share with respect to the quarter ended 31 December 2025.

Dividend Timetable

Ex-dividend date         12 February 2026

Record date                 13 February 2026

Payment date               27 February 2026

2026 Dividend Target

The Company has, for 12 consecutive years, increased its dividend by RPI or better, from a 6 pence dividend per share at IPO to 10.35 pence in respect of 2025.  The Board and the Investment Manager expect to continue this dividend progression, however our shareholders will be aware that resolution on the Government’s Consultation on Renewables Obligation (“RO”) Indexation remains outstanding.  The Company will therefore confirm its 2026 target dividend after having considered the result of the RO Indexation Consultation.

The list above is shares I coveted and wanted to buy. I bought some but as always I could have done better after last years bull market.

Assura was taken over and the yields on some of the shares mean they are not candidates for the Snowball, that is until markets crash. So unless there is a black swan event, not anytime soon.

Now it’s always easier with hindsight but if you traded the yield, you can only buy at the bottom, with luck so it’s usually better for the price to start rising. Although there is no guarantee it will not continue to fall after you bought, that’s why it’s mission critical to trade the yield.

NOTE

ALL CHARTS EXCLUDE THE EARNED DIVIDENDS