Octopus Renewables Infrastructure (ORIT) is a renewable energy infrastructure specialist, diversified by geography, technology and stage, and investing in projects from development stage to operational. Although predominantly invested in operational assets, ORIT owns equity stakes in developers, giving it access to projects at an early stage, with the potential to generate higher returns. ORIT’s Manager, OEGEN, is one of the largest, most experienced and well-resourced managers of renewables assets in Europe, with assets under management of £8.8bn.

In the first half of ORIT’s current financial year, to 30/06/2026, net assets declined from £495m to £455m, or approximately 8%. The main factor in this was a reduction in the value of ORIT’s onshore wind assets following a review of the long-term energy yield assumptions. In simple terms, the onshore wind assets, which are relatively new, were previously valued using technical assumptions and forecasts which, now that a meaningful set of actual operational data has been collected, have been updated to reflect that. Clearly this is a disappointing outcome, but it means that the vast majority of ORIT’s assets are now valued against operational data.

Despite this, ORIT remains on track to increase its annual dividend once again, with dividend cover in the first half slightly higher than for the same period last year at 1.38x. If ORIT meets its full-year target, that will represent a 4.3% annualised dividend growth rate since 2021. With ORIT currently trading at a near-30% discount, the dividend yield is 10%, which is a significant premium to government bond yields, although the gap has narrowed more recently as government bond yields in the UK and Europe have risen.

ORIT’s weighted average discount rate is now 8.3%, an increase from 7.8% at the beginning of 2026, but one that the team believes is rooted in growing transaction evidence in private markets, where it sees a stronger pickup in investor interest than in public markets. Factor in ORIT’s holdings in developers and the figure rises to 8.9%, which means that ORIT is well on track to reposition the portfolio to achieve the revised return targets it set in 2025 of 9-11%.

Analyst’s View

In our view one of the conundrums of 2026 is that, on the one hand, energy prices have risen, but on the other hand discounts on renewable energy infrastructure trusts have remained stubbornly wide. It’s true that the sector, and ORIT, have faced strong headwinds, but ultimately they are selling a product, electricity, where demand appears to be entering a secular growth trend. The factors that have contributed to ORIT’s wide discount such as higher interest rates, power price forecasts, the changes to the RoC regime’s inflation linkages and gearing, as well as the well-documented investment trust sector issues like cost disclosures and wealth manager consolidation, are all very well-rehearsed. And yes, a trust like ORIT, with fixed prices across much of the portfolio, cannot immediately capture a short-term spike in prices. Pile on political risk, which we take a brief look at in the Portfolio section, and the discount might seem explicable. Our view though is that all of those are well-known factors that have been running for a while and we come back to the conundrum: fund managers across regions and asset classes are very focused on the ‘electrification’ of the global economy and yet the investment trusts that pump the electrons into that trend remain overlooked. That’s starting to change though, with ORIT’s discount starting 2026 close to 40% and now trading at just under 30%.

In response to changing market conditions and a changing opportunity set in renewables, ORIT has set out a clear plan to boost its target returns by gradually increasing its allocation to construction assets to 20%, while retaining a target 5% allocation to developers. It will fund this from a mixture of excess cashflows (dividend cover was 1.38x at the half year), temporary use of debt and through gradual disposals of more mature assets. As the team notes, the revised portfolio discount rate is based on an increasing number of actual transactions in the private markets, and a number of disposals are at various stages of negotiation, with progress expected in the coming months. A successful implementation of ORIT’s plan could make the current discount seem excessively wide in time.

Bull

• A near-30% discount and 10% yield on a diversified portfolio of renewable energy generation assets
• A clear strategy to increase returns and grow the company
• Jurisdictions ORIT operates in remain supportive of renewable energy generators

Bear

• ORIT’s gearing is relatively high, and will amplify losses as well as gains
• M&A activity in the renewables sector has been slow to take off. ORIT will need to execute an M&A transaction to achieve its 2030 goal of £1bn of net assets
• A more negative political environment for renewables is emerging more broadly

Kepler

Preferred Payouts from 5.7% to 10.6%… Which is Safest ?

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: November 11, 2026

Alas, no actual threat this afternoon. Bizzi’s bark tone was the tell. As it often is on Wall Street, too.

As I write to you from my office chair, the stock jock suits are howling at AI borrowers, louder than Bizzi, “Your loans are in danger!” Trading on “default insurance”—the risk of nonpayment—for the 10 largest AI spenders and chipmakers popped more than eightfold this year, to $176 billion. That’s a chunk of insurance changing hands!

That means investors are buying protection against AI companies defaulting on their debt payments. This fear has spread to other income investments, including preferreds.

Okay, I get it. The credit market is nervous, and when this happens, it punishes the rest of Income Land. Investors are dumping perfectly good payers, such as preferred stock funds, which fell all fall.

The decline kicked off in September when rates rose. This punished long bond prices and bond proxies including preferreds. Fine. We know bonds move inverse to rates. Then credit jitters spread like the cold and flu in October. Now we have fears of an AI winter in November.

But here’s where you and I should get up off our proverbial investing couches. There are perfectly good income funds caught up in this Wall Street worry ritual.

Let’s say we own a preferred stock fund. Should we heed the warning barks? Or “ignore them” and buy low and collect the monthly payouts?

The preferred stock asset class is a promise plus a payout. Preferred shares put us ahead of regular “common” stockholders for dividends—we are paid first. But we sit behind bondholders when the you-know-what hits the fan. So, yes, we receive preference but only over the regular common stock holders.

So far, so good. The tradeoff? Preferreds offer less upside than common shares. That’s okay. We are focused on income, not buying and hoping that our portfolio goes up, so this is a trade we are just fine making because preferreds tend to pay more (often a multiple more) than common shares.

Sounds compelling, yes, but how exactly do we make this trade as individual investors? How do we buy preferreds?

Preferred stock selection is not for beginners. Got a complex database with specific terms, interest rates, and credit quality? How about analysis based on various credit scenarios?

No thanks! We’re trying to retire—not perspire—on dividends here! And as we maximize our leisure time and passive income we “outsource” this research to expert preferred stock managers like Flaherty & Crumrine and Nuveen. Why spin cycles in the minutiae of individual preferred selection when we can simply buy the funds (which trade just like stocks)?

Let’s consider the four biggest positions for First Trust Preferred Securities and Income ETF (FPE), a popular preferred ETF. One click and we have this portfolio which is made up firstly of banks (the classic issuers of preferred stock): Bank of America (BAC), Barclays (BCS), Wells Fargo (WFC) and Citigroup (C). Further down the list we have two utilities, NextEra Energy (NEE) and Xcel Energy (XEL).

You know what FPE’s top 10 holdings don’t include? AI or data center related debt!

For every $100 in FPE’s portfolio, $45 sits in bank securities. The next $13 sits in utilities and $12 in insurers. That’s $70 out of $100 in traditional, “boring” (boring is good!) preferred payers.

Let’s say AI play Broadcom (AVGO) takes on more debt tomorrow. This doesn’t affect the terms of the Wells Fargo preferred whatsoever.

Now, could trouble with an AI borrower reach a bank? Sure. Banks lend to data center projects, and if many of these loans sour, the bank’s capital can take a hit. Which is why we want funds that invest in banks that have adequate capital and a diversified loan portfolio.

The bigger risk for preferreds? Interest rates. Preferred stocks typically have no maturity date, so like long-duration bonds, they lose value when long-term rates rise.

Let’s say a preferred stock pays 6%. That looks attractive when long rates are at 3%, and far less so when they rise to 6%. Why lend money to a company that has to make money and fight off competitors when you can give it to Uncle Sam for the same amount?

Now, FPE as an ETF trades for about the value of what it owns—its net asset value (NAV). So there’s no discount here, but you can snag one by considering preferred closed-end funds (CEFs) instead.

CEFs work differently from ETFs in that they don’t create and redeem shares every day. They are, well, closed! So their prices can drift above and below NAV. When below, that is the discount we contrarians love.

Most preferred CEFs also borrow to buy more preferreds. Generally this boosts income because they are borrowing for less than they earn. But borrowing also magnifies losses when prices drop.

But we need to make sure each fund earns its payout—and this is different from promising a dividend! Let’s look at two leading preferred ETFs and five top preferred CEFs. You’ll notice:

1. The CEFs offer a better deal from a discount-to-NAV standpoint.
2. Three of the CEFs have poor income coverage!

Flaherty & Crumrine Dynamic Preferred and Income Fund (DFP) and sister fund Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred and Income Securities Fund (FFC) are the best with 98% and 97% dividend coverage. From here it turns dicey with Nuveen Preferred & Income Opportunities Fund (JPC) rounding out the list with only two-thirds dividend coverage.

Translation: DFP and FFC roughly earn enough to fund their dividends from income. JPC is paying (for now) but covering the gap from elsewhere.

Whichever fund you buy, use a limit order. Some of these trade thinly.

I’ve sold the PCT shares in the SNOWBALL for a loss of £50 after all dealing costs.

I’ve added to BRAI 340 shares for 1k. The two shares are similar but BRAI pays a dividend where PCT doesn’t.

Dividend

Four interim dividends were paid in respect of the year ended 31 August 2026, totalling 25.10p per share and delivering a yield of 9.5%. This continues the Company’s track record of returning a progressive dividend for 19 consecutive years.

I am pleased to report that the dividend has been fully funded from revenue, and we have added a modest amount to reserves this year.

Thursday 12 November

BlackRock American Income Trust PLC ex-dividend date
Fidelity Emerging Markets Ltd ex-dividend date
Greencoat UK Wind PLC ex-dividend date
ICG Enterprise Trust PLC ex-dividend date
International Public Partnerships Ltd ex-dividend date
Majedie Investments PLC ex-dividend date
NextEnergy Solar Fund Ltd ex-dividend date
Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust PLC ex-dividend date
Pershing Square Holdings Ltd ex-dividend date
Schroder BSC Social Impact Trust PLC ex-dividend date
Scottish American Investment Co PLC ex-dividend date
Target Healthcare REIT PLC ex-dividend date

I’ve bought for the SNOWBALL 341 shares in BRAI ahead of their xd date this week. I fully expect to lose some capital in the short term but if/when the price falls, I will be able to buy more shares from the re-invested dividends.

If the price falls the actual dividend payment will also fall as currently the dividend is paid at 6% of NAV.

I’ve bought for the SNOWBALL 11017 NRR (New River Reit) shares for 9k.

The spread can widen, so after buying you may be sitting on a loss.

Artificial Intelligence, Dividend Investing, Energy Investing, ETFs, High-Yield Investing, Infrastructure, Midstream Energy, Natural Gas

November 9, 2026 by Tim Plaehn

Energy infrastructure has become a hot-button topic in the discussion around the data center buildout. However, energy sector infrastructure stock prices have been hit- or-miss this year, as investor sentiment about the data center buildout swings from enthusiastic to negative.    

For example, here is the year-to-date chart for Kodiak Gas Services (KGS), which provides natural gas compression at the wellheads. It has been viewed as a distributed power supplier for data centers and other industrial customers.

The KGS chart shows how investor sentiment can swing wildly. Kodiak Gas Services is a fine company, but investor excitement pushed the stock to a high too fast in the spring.

Companies that provide energy infrastructure, primarily from natural gas, are referred to as midstream companies. They own natural gas gathering, processing, and transport assets. Midstream energy companies also own and operate crude oil and fuels infrastructure assets.

One challenge with midstream investing is that many companies in the sector are organized as Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs). MLPs issue Forms K-1 for tax reporting, which makes income tax reporting a challenge. I avoid recommending K-1 reporting stocks to my subscribers.

My recommended midstream investment is the InfraCap MLP ETF (AMZA). This ETF primarily invests in MLPs, but also owns the better corporate midstream companies. The AMZA share price is up 27% year-to-date, and it has gained 82% over the last five years. On top of that, you get monthly dividends with a yield that is usually in the 8% to 9% range.  The result is a 177% total return over five years.

AMZA currently yields 8.0%. The dividend should increase by about 9% in January.

One thing to know if you are thinking about investing in AMZA soon: It declares dividends for November and December that get paid in early December, due to the fund’s tax reporting. So if you buy shares now, you’ll get three monthly dividends in January.