The SNOWBALL has bought
2878 shares in SMIF for £2,500
660 shares in SDIP for £5,000
Bringing both positions to a full position
Cash to re-invest £4,179.
The SNOWBALL has sold SEIT, as its dividend policy changed and on the wind down news for a loss of £1,295.00.
The previous gain was £1,448.0. The overall gain includes £2,281 of dividends which have been re-invested, earning more income
There is a Stock Market saying.
Dividends and return of cash to Shareholders
The Board has decided not to declare a fourth interim dividend, which would normally have been paid at the end of June, because of reduced cash inflows from the portfolio in the second half of the year, mainly as a result of reduced receipts from Onyx, and the continuing capital-constrained position of the Company.
Whilst the Board had considered declaring a reduced interim dividend reflecting the lower second half cash inflow, in light of the Wind-Down it considered it more appropriate to prioritise balance sheet strength and value preservation, in particular reducing debt.
This decision, which was not easy to take, aligns with a decision to suspend future dividends (other than as necessary to maintain investment trust status). Clearly the aim of the Wind-Down is to significantly reduce drawings under the Company’s revolving credit facility and then return cash to shareholders as disposals are made. Once the revolving credit facility has been significantly reduced the Board will reconsider its position on paying interim dividends if circumstances allow.
To maximise flexibility to return cash in an efficient and equitable manner, the Board is proposing the cancellation of the amount standing to the credit of the Company’s share premium account, stated in the Circular to be approximately GBP 757 million as at 31 March 2026.
The Company intends to maintain its investment trust status, its listing on the premium segment of the Official List and trading in the Ordinary Shares on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange. The Company anticipates continuing to pay dividends to the extent required to comply with the investment trust regime for so long as it is able to do so.
This Quiet 10% Payer Beats the Hottest New Fund on the Market
Michael Foster, Investment Strategist
Updated: June 15, 2026
We love CEFs for a simple reason: Their big dividends are the best route to financial independence.
I say that from experience: Years ago, CEFs’ high income streams allowed me to leave a full-time job I disliked, travel, and live wherever I wished to. Later on, I launched my CEF Insider service to help other investors unlock these funds’ vast income potential.
Today we’re going to look at a top pick from the service’s portfolio to see how it delivers its outsized income stream (a 10.5% yield as I write this). Then we’re going to stack it up against another CEF you might think is a strong buy, but unfortunately this fund’s size and celebrity manager mask some significant flaws.
CEFs “Translate” Portfolio Gains Into High Dividends
The way CEFs deliver their strong income streams is straightforward and unique at the same time: These funds invest in a particular asset class—be it stocks, bonds, real estate investment trusts (REITs) or other holdings—and aim to return as much of their returns as possible to shareholders in the form of dividends.
Some CEFs also employ leverage to amplify those gains, while others use option strategies.
As a result of these moves, the average CEF yields 8.7% as I write this, while our CEF Insider portfolio yields slightly more: 9.1%. With yields like those, an investor needs to save a lot less to generate, say, $100,000 in yearly income than they would if they invested in a typical S&P 500 index fund (current yield around 1%):
Source: CEF Insider
Bear in mind, too, that the market’s 1% yield has been falling as stocks have gained, since yields and prices move in opposite directions. So you’d think a CEF that invests in well-known S&P 500 stocks and “translates” their gains into dividends would be worth a lot to an investor looking for passive income with a reasonable level of risk.
You’d be right. Which brings me to the first fund we’ll discuss today.
USA: A 10%-Paying CEF That Does Everything Right
The Liberty All-Star Equity Fund (USA) pays that 10.4% yield I mentioned earlier. It’s also returned 11.7% annualized over the last decade. Note that this return is based on the fund’s market price, not its per-share NAV, or the value of its underlying portfolio (an important distinction for CEFs, as we’ll see in a moment).
So you can see that USA is basically handing out its return in the form of dividends. That’s a sweet setup for an income-focused investor who wants to own S&P 500 stocks and doesn’t want to worry about timing their sales to get the cash they need.
Consider, too, that USA’s dividend payouts are up 25% in that time.
High, and Growing, Dividends From This “Gain Translator”
Those gains are thanks in no small part to the strong performance of the fund’s NAV (the orange line). The line floats up and down because USA ties its dividend to its NAV performance, aiming to pay out 10% of NAV a year, in four quarterly instalments of 2.5% each.
NAV is important for another reason, too, as a CEF’s NAV and market price can move independently of each other, causing the market price to trade at discounts or premiums to NAV. As I write this, USA trades at a 12.5% discount to NAV, well below its five-year average discount of 0.9%.
That’s far oversold for a proven fund like this, especially since USA also uses almost no leverage—around 5% of the portfolio as of this writing.
This is a CEF performing at its best, and there are many funds that deliver this kind of performance and strong income. But not all CEFs are winners. One fund recently launched by a popular investor is a good example of a CEF we want to avoid.
Size, Celebrity Manager Mask PSUS’s Flaws
That CEF is called Pershing Square USA (PSUS), and it’s run by billionaire investor Bill Ackman. We did a breakdown of PSUS in a May 14 article on Contrarian Outlook.
If you’ve been investing for a while, you’ve probably heard of Ackman. He’s a value-investing maverick and billionaire whose public fights against corporate management teams have grabbed headlines worldwide.
He dramatically took on Herbalife (HLF) via a huge short position in 2012. He ended up on the losing end of that one, but his aggressive moves did turn Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) around. Similar tactics with Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CP) had mixed results.
In April, Ackman launched PSUS, his venture into CEFs. Despite Ackman’s fame, it hasn’t gone well.
A Steep Decline in a Strong Market
As you can see above, PSUS’s return based on market price (in purple) has dramatically underperformed the S&P 500 (in orange) since the end of April, when Ackman launched PSUS. Worse, the fund’s return is down 24% since its launch.
The lack of a dividend—something we demand in CEFs—surely doesn’t help, either.
If you just know Bill Ackman as a successful hedge-fund manager, PSUS’s poor start doesn’t make sense. But it does make sense for those who’ve followed CEFs for a while.
Ackman raised $5 billion for this fund, which briefly made PSUS the fifth-largest CEF in the world. (The biggest, just as an aside, is the Sprott Physical Gold [PHYS], with $15.5 billion in assets under management).
PSUS’s size is actually part of the fund’s problem.
Five-billion dollars is a large sum by any measure. But it’s a fraction of what Ackman originally wanted: When he first discussed launching this fund in 2024, he said he was going to bring in $25 billion. When it finally launched two years later, the amount was much less than that. And even its current size has proven to be too big.
Source: Pershing Square USA
PSUS’s total NAV return since its launch has been around negative 2.5%, as of this writing, which is significantly worse than the S&P 500’s 3.6% gain over that period.
Investors are no doubt unhappy, and there are a lot of investors in this fund now due to its size and higher profile. With that in mind, the significant drop in PSUS’s market price makes sense: Demand for PSUS is falling much faster than its underlying NAV, resulting in an outsized 22.7% discount as I write this.
PSUS is still a top-10 CEF in terms of its market capitalization, so it’s no small fund. But this trend also means it’s a top-10 CEF in another way: It’s now the ninth-most-heavily discounted CEF on the market.
And PSUS could still move up to number one by that metric, unless Ackman makes some moves to close that gap. Until that happens, and the fund’s discount starts to meaningfully close, we’ll avoid PSUS at CEF Insider.
Is it ?
Thursday 18 June
Baillie Gifford China Growth Trust PLC ex-dividend date
Barings Emerging EMEA Opportunities PLC ex-dividend date
BlackRock Energy & Resources Income Trust PLC ex-dividend date
BlackRock World Mining Trust PLC ex-dividend date
British Land Co PLC ex-dividend date
Fidelity China Special Situations PLC ex-dividend date
Land Securities Group PLC ex-dividend date
NewRiver REIT PLC ex-dividend date
Nippon Active Value Fund PLC ex-dividend date
With all dividends announced for the first 6 months, the income figure will be £7,261. Do not scale, as the figure includes a special dividend. The final figure is expected to be around 12k.
Income will match the 2030 target, next year the 2031 target may not be achievable and the SNOWBALL may have to miss a year, although it will be still be ahead of the 2030 target. Remember if you can increase your income by at least 7% a year, your income will double every ten years.
The SNOWBALL has bought 654 shares in SDIP for 5k.
Previous profit for the SNOWBALL £1,563
All future dividends will be re-invested back into SMIF or SDIP depending on their relative merits at the time.
I’ve sold XSTR, yielding 4% for a tiny profit including all charges.
I’ve bought £7,500 of SMIF, they are xd this week for 50p and pay a monthly dividend. Previous profit in the Trust £855.00
A High Court freezing order covers founders Stephen and Stuart Pratt and two associates
The brothers behind a suspected motorway service station Ponzi scheme have been hit by a multi-million-pound asset-freezing order.
Administrators for Godwin Capital, which collapsed in June last year, successfully obtained a £155m High Court freezing order against the directors and associated companies. The order covers the business’s founders, brothers Stephen Pratt and Stuart Pratt, and two other associates.
Administrators of MHA cited mismanagement, fraudulent trading and breach of fiduciary duty when obtaining the order, according to a letter seen by The Telegraph.
Godwin Capital’s collapse last year left thousands of Britons out of pocket. The company had raised hundreds of millions of pounds from thousands of small-time investors who provided loans of between £5,000 and £50,000 each and were promised returns of 10pc or higher.
Investors were told their money would be used to build residential and commercial properties, including motorway service stations, and that their loans would be secured against the properties.
Some of the projects were built, such as the Ram Jam Service station on the A1.
However, after Godwin collapsed, administrators allegedly discovered that loans were not secured against properties and funds had instead been used to repay other investors in an apparent Ponzi scheme.
Overall, it is believed that around 2,500 investors could have lost as much as £150m.
Martin Richardson, senior partner at Richardson Hartley Law, which is representing some of the investors who lost money in the scheme, said: “Investors’ money was clearly not spent in a way for which they intended when they sent the money.
“We have scores of clients whose lives have been ruined by this incredibly sophisticated scheme that took tens of millions of pounds with little or no returns.”
Barry Coffey, a partner at law firm Mishcon de Reya who specialises in fraud investigation and recovery, told Bisnow, a commercial real estate newspaper: “If there was money coming in which has been used to pay off prior investors, that would appear to be a Ponzi scheme.”
‘They seemed very professional’
Hilary Randall, a 72-year-old retired lab technician, lost £20,000 investing in Godwin Capital – almost all of her entire life savings – after being introduced to the scheme by a friend.
She was promised annual returns of up to 12pc and was repeatedly asked to invest more money in the scheme. After she asked to withdraw her funds, she was told to wait another 12 months, during which time the company collapsed.
Ms Randall is now entirely reliant on her pension to support her.
“I was contemplating having to sell the house to get some money taken out for me to live off,” she said. “I want to go on holiday; that’s what this money was supposed to be for after I retired, and I was going to get the money out, ironically, and then obviously it all went kaput.”
Stephen Jones, a 62-year-old self-employed landscape gardener, invested £90,000 with Godwin Capital – his savings and also his pension. He received no further communications from the company after investing and has been unable to contact anyone since.
“I’d gone to the office in Birmingham, and they’d cleared the stuff out two or three weeks before they went into administration,” Mr Jones said.
“They sent a proper professional leaflet with all the directors explaining the debenture. Yeah. And they told you about the directors, people with a lot of experience, a lot of years of investment.
“These men would have nice houses. They’d have had a good salary out of it. They seemed very professional. So why do what they’ve done?”
Lawyers for the directors were contacted for comment.
In 2003, the Pratt brothers began converting a former office building in central Nottingham, owned by their father, into luxury homes. The project was planned and administered from their parents’ dining room, giving rise to the company name Godwin Developments, after the 19th-century architect who designed their family home.
It wasn’t until 2018 that they launched the company’s associated finance division, Godwin Capital, and started raising money from retail investors in earnest.
It’s difficult enough buying companies quoted on a stock market, it’s a potential can of worms if you venture outside of the market.