The Board of Primary Health Properties plc (“PHP”) notes the recent press speculation regarding the potential formation of a joint venture in connection with PHP’s private hospital portfolio.
As previously announced, PHP has been exploring a range of strategic options to enhance the long-term value of the private hospital portfolio, including potential joint venture arrangements with highly credible investors.
PHP confirms that it is in advanced discussions with an investor regarding the potential contribution of the private hospital portfolio to seed a new joint venture.
Discussions remain ongoing, will be subject to all necessary approvals and there can be no certainty that any transaction will be agreed, nor as to the terms on which any transaction might be concluded. PHP continues to evaluate all options.
A further announcement will be made as and when appropriate.
SCHRODER EUROPEAN REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST PLC
(“SEREIT” or the “Company” and, together with its subsidiaries, the “Group”)
Proposed managed wind-downand return of capital to shareholders
The Board of Schroder European Real Estate Investment Trust plc and the Investment Manager, having assessed a variety of options for the Company, including mechanisms to address the persistent discount that the Company’s shares trade at relative to its Net Asset Value (the “Discount”), announces it intends to present formal proposals to shareholders for a managed wind-down of the Company.
The equity markets continue to disadvantage smaller, listed vehicles, especially sub £100 million market cap, irrespective of management quality or the suitability and effective delivery of strategies, with growing evidence that institutional investors want exposure to larger vehicles that offer enhanced liquidity, diversification and cost efficiencies. Despite offering shareholders unique access to a diversified portfolio of Continental European commercial real estate, delivering strong underlying property performance which has supported over £80 million of dividend payments since IPO, as well as maintaining a robust balance sheet, the Company’s size and low levels of liquidity have adversely affected the share price performance for a prolonged period of time.
The Board has actively explored various strategies, including share buybacks and a transition towards thematic or sector-specific investments. However, primarily as a result of continued macro uncertainty and the above-mentioned structural shift in investor sentiment towards larger UK real estate equities, it does not expect these strategies to significantly close the discount or support substantial long-term growth. In light of this, and following discussions with major shareholders, the Board, together with the Investment Manager, has concluded that it is in the best interests of shareholders to present formal proposals for a managed wind-down of the Company.
The Board and Investment Manager are of the opinion that the Company’s portfolio can be realised in the direct property market at a value in excess of what is currently implied by the prevailing share price.
The Board intends to publish a circular in due course to convene a general meeting, where it will seek shareholders’ approval through an ordinary resolution to modify the Company’s investment objective and policy necessary for a managed wind-down. Additionally, the Board and the Investment Manager have initiated discussions regarding the provision of investment management services during the wind-down, under revised terms aimed at better aligning the Investment Manager with the goal of maximising shareholder returns in a timely fashion. More details will be included in the Circular.
Should shareholder approval be granted, the Board will endeavour to realise all of the Company’s investments in a cost-effective manner, balancing the goal of maximising value from these investments with the timely return of capital to shareholders. Realisations may take the form of single asset or multi-asset disposals, with the proceeds used to repay borrowings and make timely returns of capital to shareholders.
The Company’s diversified portfolio totals 14 assets in high-growth locations across France, Germany and the Netherlands, which should underpin buyer interest, with the Investment Manager having the added benefit of leveraging the wider Schroders pan-European platform. Given the current market backdrop (as outlined in the Company’s most recently published Interim Report) and heightened geopolitical risks, the managed wind-down process is expected to take approximately two to three years to complete. This timing also allows us to execute targeted asset management initiatives to position the assets for sale and manage the French tax litigation.
Should shareholders vote to approve the managed wind-down, it is the Board’s current intention to continue paying dividends in order to maintain the Company’s investment trust status. The level of dividend payments will decline as the portfolio income reduces and as capital is returned to shareholders.
Changes to the Watch List, include Trusts that have cut their dividend and Trusts that have been taken over.
Watch List shares are higher yielding shares and are posted only for you to DYOR, to increase the income of your Snowball, taking the minimum risks possible.
Saltydog Investor looks at the winners and losers of 2026.
23rd June 2026
by Douglas Chadwick from ii contributor
This content is provided by Saltydog Investor. It is a third-party supplier and not part of interactive investor. It is provided for information only and does not constitute a personal recommendation.
With the summer solstice now behind us and the second half of the year approaching, we thought it would be interesting to look at the best and worst-performing funds so far this year.
Saltydog monitors the vast majority of UK-domiciled funds available through the main investment platforms. Funds are first sorted into Investment Association (IA) sectors and then combined into Saltydog Groups according to their historic volatility.
Our primary focus is on sector performance. Sustained sector trends can reflect changes in economic conditions and investor sentiment. However, the returns of the best and worst funds show that sector labels are only part of the story.
Top 10 funds
The leading funds this year have been focused on South Korea, technology and the Asia-Pacific markets.
and SK Hynix, both of which are major beneficiaries of the global surge in demand for advanced semiconductors and memory chips driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and data centre expansion.
If Barings Korea keeps going at its current pace, it could do even better this year.
The best and worst funds in each sector
We have also identified the best and worst-performing fund within each of the IA sectors that we monitor each week. The results are grouped according to the Saltydog volatility categories.
Data source: Morningstar. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.
*There are a small number of bond sectors where we track only one or two funds. These have been combined into a single Global & Global Emerging Market Bonds sector.
Here, we look at the results one Saltydog group at a time.
‘Safe Haven’
The ‘Safe Haven’ group contains Short Term Money Market and Standard Money Market funds. The spread between the best and worst returns is tiny, reflecting strict limits around credit quality, duration and liquidity.
Royal London APAC ex Jpn Eq Tilt Z Acc (B68SHD9) is up 60.5%, compared with 7.8% from the weakest fund in the Asia Pacific excluding Japan sector. China-focused funds have also produced a sharp contrast, ranging from a 56.7% gain to a 10% loss.
The leadership in this area has changed markedly since last year. In 2025, the strongest Specialist funds were focused on gold and metals. This year, South Korea, smart energy and AI have featured more prominently.
Not every specialist area has performed well. Healthcare and India funds have generally struggled, with the best fund in both sectors still showing a loss.
Final thoughts
The first half of the year has produced exceptional gains in South Korea, technology, artificial intelligence (AI) and Asia-Pacific markets.
However, even within the same IA sector, outcomes can vary dramatically. Sector trends remain an important starting point, but reviewing the funds within those sectors can help investors see where the strongest and weakest returns can be found.
Berkshire Hathaway has a history of poor UK stock picks, and it might have sold too soon again
Published on June 22, 2026
by Dan Jones
Berkshire Hathaway’s (US:BRK.B) $10bn (£7.6bn) investment in Alphabet (US:GOOGL) earlier this month shows that chief executive Greg Abel, aka the man who replaced Warren Buffett, is making his mark. But a different decision by the new man – one that’s made far fewer headlines – holds just as much interest for UK equity investors. In the opening months of the year, the company sold its stake in Guinness and Johnnie Walker owner Diageo (DGE). From this we can learn plenty about sell discipline, managerial strategy and investment philosophies.
There’s no way to sugarcoat it: the drinks giant was a disastrous investment for Berkshire. The sale crystallised a loss of around 50 per cent on the position it bought three years ago. The events of the 1990s, when Buffett chose Guinness as his first major overseas investment only to see the shares subsequently underperform, have repeated themselves.
In this regard, the retreat is also reminiscent of the insurer’s only other UK holding of recent times: a similarly ill-fated stake in Tesco (TSCO). That divestment finally completed in late 2014, Buffett having admitted to making a “huge mistake” with the stock.
If you own shares, one day you will own a clunker, how you deal with that event will dictate how successful your Snowball will be going forward.
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AVI Global Trust PLC ex-dividend date Chelverton UK Dividend Trust PLC ex-dividend date Lowland Investment Co PLC ex-dividend date North American Income Trust PLC ex-dividend date Personal Assets Trust PLC ex-dividend date Templeton Emerging Markets IT PLC ex-dividend date TR Property Investment Trust PLC ex-dividend date
The Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG)19 June 2026
Disclaimer
Disclosure – Non-Independent Marketing Communication
This is a non-independent marketing communication commissioned by The Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG). The report has not been prepared in accordance with legal requirements designed to promote the independence of investment research and is not subject to any prohibition on the dealing ahead of the dissemination of investment research.
Let’s go back to basics with TRIG: it’s a utility scale energy generator.
Overview
The Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG) has a £2.9bn diversified portfolio of renewable energy infrastructure assets spread across five countries and four technologies. The UK is the largest single country exposure at 59%, along with four other European countries. TRIG develops, constructs, operates and optimises assets across onshore and offshore wind, solar PV and battery storage and, in taking on the whole value chain from development, can sustain and extend the asset life of its portfolio without having to periodically raise fresh equity. There is high visibility over revenues with 68% fixed and 56% inflation-linked over the next ten years.
TRIG currently yields 10% and the dividend is fully covered. TRIG’s dividend for the year ending 31/12/2026 is targeted to be held at the same level as for 2025. This follows discussions between the board and shareholders and is a recognition that the dividend is already at a very attractive level. Nevertheless, dividend cover is expected to rise over the coming years, with the long-term objective of normalising at 1.1 to 1.2×.
One factor in TRIG’s high yield is the 29% discount. TRIG and its peer group have traded at wide discounts from the outset of the higher interest rate era, but in the Dividend section we look at how wide the spread between TRIG’s yield and government bonds is, suggesting that while, yes, its share price is sensitive to interest rates, the spread over bond yields has been stretched to its widest point since TRIG’s 2013 IPO. As we see in the Portfolio section, TRIG’s NAV is much less sensitive to interest rates though.
TRIG has a comprehensive capital allocation approach in response to the discount, with a £150m share buyback programme and targeted capital recycling.
Analyst’s View
Over the last few years, it has been very easy to get overwhelmed by all the detail when it comes to renewable energy infrastructure generally and TRIG specifically. And to focus on the big macro factor, interest rates, that has been the main influence on share prices, together with shifts in regulatory policy, the ‘Trump’ factor and power prices. But behind all of that, we find it very interesting that, at a point in time when global energy supply chains have just undergone perhaps one of the largest shocks in history, TRIG, which of course sells energy, is trading at a level where its dividend yield is at the widest spread over UK government bonds that it has been since its IPO. While we follow the short-term logic of investors taking a cautious stance on markets, the irony is striking. There will be, and already is, plenty of rhetoric about how the UK must do more to extract its own gas and oil resources, and whether that’s practical or not it doesn’t change the fact that renewables are not a small side hustle for the UK and other European countries, but an integral part of the energy mix.
TRIG’s big advantage in all of this is its diversification, scale and capacity to become self-sustaining. With wide discounts, raising fresh equity to acquire new operational assets is currently off the agenda, and development and construction have become an important part of the mix. TRIG has the scale to maintain dividend cover while allocating capital to generate higher returns from reinvestment and construction. The 29% discount therefore looks to us to be a remarkable opportunity.
Bull
True utility-scale diversified portfolio of assets
Development and construction pipeline could generate higher returns and extend the portfolio life
Wide discount and yield spread over government bonds
Bear
TRIG uses gearing, which can amplify losses as well as gains, albeit gearing is lower than average for the sector
A high proportion of fixed revenues, with over 55% inflation-linked, mean dividend growth may be lower than inflation
Political risk over energy policy has moved a notch higher in the UK but TRIG’s country diversification helps mitigate this
NextEnergy Solar Fund Limited (LSE:NESF) has unveiled a strategic reset after reporting a significant reduction in net asset value, with NAV per share falling to 76.1p and gross asset value decreasing to £922 million.
Despite the lower valuation, the company highlighted strong operational performance across its solar and energy storage portfolio. Electricity generation exceeded budgeted expectations, while the flagship 50MW Camilla battery storage project continued to rank among the highest-performing assets on the Great Britain grid, demonstrating the resilience and cash-generating capability of the portfolio.
Portfolio Performance Remains Strong
Management emphasised that underlying asset performance remained robust throughout the period, supported by reliable renewable energy generation and growing contributions from energy storage operations.
The company believes the strong operational delivery highlights the quality of its asset base, even as wider market conditions continue to weigh on sector valuations and investor sentiment.
Strategic Reset Targets Shareholder Value
In response to persistent discounts across the listed renewable infrastructure sector, the board has introduced a new strategic framework focused on strengthening the balance sheet, improving capital allocation and addressing the gap between the share price and underlying asset value.
A key element of the plan is the adoption of a revised dividend policy. Rather than maintaining a progressive dividend approach, the fund will distribute 75% of operating free cash flow, resulting in a lower but more sustainable and better-covered dividend.
The company also intends to reduce gearing through targeted asset disposals while recycling capital into projects offering higher returns. Expanding exposure to battery storage remains another strategic priority, reflecting management’s view that storage assets can provide attractive long-term growth opportunities alongside solar generation.
Focus on Balance Sheet and Long-Term Returns
The board believes the combination of deleveraging, capital recycling and disciplined dividend management will help stabilise net asset value and unlock value embedded within the portfolio.
Management is encouraging shareholders to support the company’s continuation proposal at the upcoming annual general meeting, arguing that the revised strategy provides a clearer pathway to improving long-term total returns despite ongoing market challenges.
Outlook
NextEnergy Solar Fund’s outlook continues to be affected by weaker financial performance, including declining revenue and two consecutive years of net losses. Technical indicators also remain negative, with the shares trading below key moving averages and momentum measures such as MACD remaining under pressure.
However, these challenges are partly offset by strong and improving operating cash flow generation, a debt-free balance sheet position reported in 2025 and an attractive dividend yield.
Management believes that successful execution of the strategic reset, combined with the operational strength of the portfolio and increasing exposure to energy storage, should position the company to create greater value for shareholders over time.
More about NextEnergy Solar Fund
NextEnergy Solar Fund Limited is a specialist renewable energy investment company focused on solar power generation and energy storage infrastructure.
The fund owns and manages a diversified portfolio of long-life assets designed to generate stable and predictable cash flows. Its investment strategy centres on utility-scale solar projects and standalone battery storage facilities, primarily located in the UK.
Through a combination of renewable energy generation, active portfolio management and selective investment in storage technologies, the company seeks to deliver sustainable income and long-term capital growth for shareholders operating within the renewables infrastructure sector.
This article was written by the editorial team at InvestorsHub/ADVFN and is provided for informational purposes only.
DYOR. NESF have trimmed their dividend, see above.
Infrastructure trusts have evolved, but are they still being assessed with reference to the past?
Alan Ray
Updated 17 Jun 2026
Disclaimer
This is not substantive investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. This material should be considered as general market commentary.
Had you been around at the time the song referenced in our title was released in 1969, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Rolling Stones was a band that maybe had a couple more years left in it. A dangerous rock and roll band working with a classical choir sounds like it’s closer to the end than the beginning. But here we are in 2026 with the Stones’ latest single, accompanied by an official deepfake video, getting daily airplay on mainstream radio. And whereas the A side of that single takes in modern production techniques that make it sit easily against a backdrop of much younger bands, the B side sounds like an outtake from a session back in the sixties. So, extraordinary longevity, and yet moving with the times, but a core proposition that is unchanged. Leading us quite neatly to the listed infrastructure sector.
Rising interest rates ended a golden era for infrastructure trusts and other so-called ‘bond proxy’ income trusts. For many years, these trusts could raise new capital almost on demand as investors sought higher returns than were on offer from government bonds. This was all taken away in 2022, and the infrastructure trusts’ premiums turned to discounts. That, of course, is extremely well-documented in the pages of many Kepler research reports.
Whether you are a music aficionado or an investment trust historian, the past can be fascinating and teach us many things. But just like in our introduction, it can lead us to make torturous parallels, and we risk anchoring ourselves to what has gone before. After a seismic shift, we might spend some time waiting for things to return to ‘normal’ before it dawns on us that there’s no such thing. Is it time to change our frame of reference for infrastructure trusts? The sector turned 20 years old in March this year, but the last five of those have, in our view, seen the most rapid evolution. The chart below remains an incredibly useful tool, looking at the yield spread of an infrastructure investment trust over UK government bonds. But is it quite as useful as it would have been back in 2006? Here we’ve unapologetically picked HICL Infrastructure (HICL) as the reference, since its IPO was just over 20 years ago and it comfortably meets the definition of being a sector bellwether. Its launch defined what we investment trust investors know about infrastructure investing.
HICL: SPREAD OVER GILTS
Source: Morningstar
Bearing in mind there was an initial ‘ramp up’ period, for most of the data series above, the HICL proposition was very much ‘government-backed cashflows’, and while yes, there was some inflation-linkage and potential for capital growth, investors’ minds were very much focussed on the current yield rather than the growth prospects. So, the spread over gilts would have told you a fair bit about investor sentiment. This remains the case, but as the chart shows, the spread now is lower than it has been for most of HICL’s history. What’s going on?
Let’s start by stepping back in time again, this time by ten years. The chart below is one way of looking at the classic dilemma that faces income investors, regardless of whether they are investing in equities, infrastructure, or debt: a higher starting dividend vs higher dividend growth. HICL exemplifies the classic steady government-backed-cashflow approach to infrastructure that started it all, whereas the trust we’ve chosen to compare it to, 3i Infrastructure (3IN), takes a different approach, investing in businesses with infrastructure characteristics. In the chart, we take HICL as the benchmark for dividend yield and at the start of the series, its yield is rebased to 100. Its rising dividend is tracked by the blue area. 3IN’s yield at the start of this series was lower, and this is proportionally reflected in the lower starting point of the black line, which then rises as 3IN’s dividend grows. This allows one to see how much yield one would have foregone in purchasing 3IN instead of HICL at the start of the period and then how quickly one would have caught up, if one measures yield against the starting price or book cost. Looking at yield this way is probably something a lot of income investors do in their heads, if not on a spreadsheet. Thus, “I bought the shares ten years ago at 100p, and this year I got dividends of 10p, so I’m very happy, and I don’t look at the current share price too often.”
In reading the chart, treat the numbers as indicative rather than precise. For example, we have used the prevailing net asset values of the two trusts at the start of the series to calculate the starting yields because it is just as likely that an investor would have acquired shares in both through a capital raise at a price close to NAV as to have acquired them at the market price. Given the range of likely prices paid, taking the net asset value as the starting point seems like the closest thing to a level playing field.
3IN and HICL DIVIDEND GROWTH
Source: Company Reports
Obviously, this chart shows that the yield investor choosing 3IN ten years ago would have ended up today with a higher yield compared to their initial cost, but saying that is, first, rear-view mirror investing and second, completely ignores the context at the time. HICL was valued by its shareholders for its ‘bond proxy’ characteristics: government-backed cashflows from highly predictable projects focussed on core areas of infrastructure. In contrast, 3IN’s equity upside and potential for downside put it into a higher risk category for many shareholders. The reality at the time was that large investors were often not making a choice between the two but putting them into completely different risk categories. It’s no coincidence that, ten years ago, far more of the sector followed the HICL model than the 3IN model, as it’s normally the case that the most influential shareholder groups, wealth managers, and multi-asset funds manage much more money in their low- and medium-risk categories than in higher risk.
Which leads to one important piece of context about the investment trust sector. New investment trust launches are often designed with input from their original investors, and quite a bit of pushing and pulling at the pilot stage prior to an IPO can occur. And in an era of regular capital raises, that influence persisted long after an IPO, with the same investors generally supporting each new raise. The start of the data series above falls right in the middle of an era where the largest investors in the sector wanted ‘alternative income’ to government bonds, rather than equity risk. So, we have a sector and a frame of reference that has been moulded by low interest rates and a certain kind of shareholder.
You might get what you need
Roll forward to 2026, and the infrastructure trusts have seen a significant evolution in who their shareholders are. It’s well known that the giant wealth managers and multi-asset institutional investors are reducing their commitment to the sector. You will still find many of them on the registers of infrastructure trusts, but their size and influence have waned. We’ve moved from an era where strategy is shaped by shareholders with defined risk categorisations to, what we might say is, a more pragmatic group of shareholders who just want the management teams to say what they think the best strategy is, and then get on and deliver it.
Once again taking HICL as the bellwether, in this more pragmatic era, it remains very much focussed on steady, lower-risk investing with a higher dividend but has expanded its capacity to develop projects at an earlier stage and broadened its geographic and sectoral horizons. The capacity for higher returns, both in dividend growth and capital terms, has been building for a while, and we think it will start to show very strongly in the coming years. We also think it is far more likely to find investors placing this alongside 3IN, with its hybrid of infrastructure and private equity, rather than in a different risk bucket. The two are very different, but each can play an anchor role in an equity income portfolio. Going back to our earlier ‘spread over gilts’ chart, we think the market is gradually starting to value HICL’s growth potential alongside its income, and that the narrower-than-average spread isn’t as perplexing as it might seem.
A good illustration of evolving investor attitudes comes from one of the more unique infrastructure investors in the sector. Cordiant Digital Infrastructure (CORD) listed in 2021, around the time that the clock was running down on the ‘bond proxy’ era. This is very much in the mould of buying operating companies that have infrastructure characteristics and assets, which have the capacity to be expanded through the management teams ‘buy, build, and grow’ approach. CORD focusses on digital infrastructure in areas like fibre optic networks, broadcast towers, and infrastructure. Just like 3IN, the risks are higher, but with that comes the potential for higher rewards, including dividend and capital growth.
One trust that has remained firmly in the income first camp is GCP Infrastructure Investments (GCP), which, from inception, has invested in the debt rather than equity of social infrastructure projects in the UK. Whereas GCP’s average project size is smaller than average for the sector, which in some cases exposes it to higher risk, it has a very low loss ratio compared to general private credit, and many of its investments are amortising debt. This puts it in a good position to, first, gradually pay down its debt, which it has almost done, second, buy shares back at very attractive discounts, enhancing the NAV and earnings per share, but third, opens the way to gradually reset the portfolio by writing loans at prevailing interest rates. GCP’s wider-than-average discount hints that its ‘bond proxy’ characteristics are still stronger than others, but in its own way, it has a clear path to recovery through the mechanism described above. A different flavour of debt investment into infrastructure comes from the geographically and sectorally more diverse Sequoia Economic Infrastructure Income (SEQI), which again, lends to infrastructure projects, and it is primarily focussed on generating a high income.
Conclusion
As we have seen, while there is still a broad spread of strategies in the infrastructure sector, and it is still very possible to prioritise high income over dividend growth, there has been a shift to a more balanced total return approach that is more self-sustaining and less dependent on a constant cycle of new capital raises. And possibly more analogous to an equity income fund than a bond fund.
Readers may have noticed how often the topic of infrastructure arises in our coverage of equity trusts. Whether it’s the UK, Europe, the US, or Emerging Markets, companies whose business is associated with infrastructure are woven into the fabric of so many portfolios. From the electrification of economies, datacentres (and all the associated control, power, and cabling systems), or the more conventional restoration and upgrading of core infrastructure, the need for capital is vast, and the definition of what constitutes infrastructure is constantly being refreshed. This serves to highlight that a specialist vehicle able to own and operate the resulting assets over the long-term is even more relevant today than it was two decades ago, and the infrastructure sector is one of the greatest success stories of the investment trust sector. Given the evolving nature of these trusts and the assets that they can own and operate, we think the next 20 years will be even more fascinating and rewarding than the last.
