Investment Trust Dividends
Not naval gazing, that’s a totally different topic for boys and girls.
The updated Snowball plan.
Current cash for re-investment £431.00, expected dividends £493.00.
Unless an unexpected event occurs, the Snowball will have to wait for August for any cash to be re-invested.
Moving onto investment trusts, June’s most-purchased trusts mainly saw more of the same, though we did have one intriguing new entry:
| Top five most-bought investment trusts |
| 1. Scottish Mortgage (SMT) |
| 2. City of London (CTY) |
| 3. JPMorgan Global Growth & Income (JGGI) |
| 4. Greencoat UK Wind (UKW) |
| 5. Tiger Royalties & Investments (TIR) |
Source: AJ Bell, Bestinvest and interactive investor
The most interesting addition to this week’s investment trust list is Tiger Royalties (TIR), which has featured on Kepler Trust Intelligence just once before. TIR combines a portfolio of small-cap mining companies such as African Pioneer and Galileo Resources, with a recent move into cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence.
TIR recently acquired Bixby Technology, which itself aims to invest in technology enterprises, for £325,000. Bixby’s first purchase was AROK, which allows people to invest in so-called utility meme coins, which TIR says are a type of crypto asset built to represent the live fiscal value of a social movement. It then invested in TAO Strategies Singapore, which operates on the Bittensor blockchain network.
Shares have been on a rollercoaster ride in the past month, rising initially c. 450%, but falling by c. 50% since.
We’ll very quickly run through the top four, as they’re long-time favourites. Scottish Mortgage (SMT) continues to be in vogue, as it benefits from US growth stocks’ recovery post-Liberation Day.
Dividend hero City of London (CTY); and core, global equity income option JPMorgan Global Growth & Income (JGGI) rode high on the equity side, too.
Elsewhere, a renaissance in the renewables sector has kept wind farm owner Greencoat UK Wind (UKW) in demand. Shares have risen c. 20% since April – almost as much as some US tech stocks – to trade at a five-month high.
Published on July 4, 2025
by Val Cipriani
After three fairly abysmal years, real estate investment trusts are having a solid 2025 – the FTSE 350 Real Estate Investment Trusts index returned 11 per cent between the start of the year and 25 June.
But with interest rates only coming down at a snail’s pace, a flurry of corporate activity has done some of the heavy lifting for the sector.
Last week, Warehouse Reit’s (WHR) board recommended an offer from rival Tritax Big Box (BBOX), higher than the previously announced offer from Blackstone; in June, PRS Reit (PRSR) said it received a cash proposal from real estate investment management firm Long Harbour. And this is just the latest news.
Investors are being left with fewer options, particularly if they wish to access specialist areas of the sector.
Nobody seems shocked that M&A is happening at pace. The UK-listed property sector has often been criticised for being too fragmented, and higher interest rates and shares trading at a discount to net asset value (NAV) have provided a catalyst for consolidation and dealmaking.
In theory, a consolidated sector is not automatically a smaller one, at least in terms of sheer asset value. Some think that listed buyers are actually better positioned than private equity buyers, as demonstrated by the bidding wars for Assura (AGR) and Warehouse Reit.
“Borrowing costs are so elevated that private equity funds, which typically use more debt than Reits for acquisitions, are now at a disadvantage,” says Edoardo Gili, senior analyst at Green Street. “Perhaps counter-intuitively, we therefore expect the Reit market to keep growing, as long as borrowing rates remain high in the UK.”
Some of the biggest Reits, particularly LondonMetric (LMP) and partly Tritax Big Box, are showing an “entrepreneurial” mindset, demonstrating focus and ambition to scale up. This is a pretty new approach in the UK market,” says John Moore, wealth manager at RBC Brewin Dolphin. The other big players in the sector might have to take note or risk being left behind.
Analysts also agree that there is more corporate activity to come. “There are too many small-scale and inefficient Reits in the UK that should be consolidated within broader companies,” says Gili.
On this note, it is worth keeping in mind that there are technically two types of Reits: trading companies such as LondonMetric, which are under the FCA listing category of “equity shares”, and those such as Tritax that list as “closed-ended investment funds”, and as such are covered by the Association of Investment Companies.
Most of the biggest players in the sector, including the giant Segro (SGRO), are in the first group, while the second category has been shrinking fast, as the chart below shows.
Cost disclosure rules, which campaigners argue have been contributing to discounts across the investment trust sector, would apply to the second group but not the first.
Meanwhile, private equity buyers are by no means out of the picture. Richard Williams, property analyst at QuotedData, notes that discounts still look wide – for example, as of 25 June, the average was 15 per cent for the AIC UK commercial property sector, and 11 per cent for the residential sector.
“With share prices where they are, there remains ample opportunity for private equity to bag more portfolios on the cheap and reap the benefits of the valuation uplifts to come at the expense of shareholders,” he says.
If you had bought MRCH at the start of 2005 the price was 372p and the dividend was 18.3p a yield of 5%
The current dividend 28.4p a yield of 7.6% on buying price, current yield if you bought today 5.16%.
You would have sat thru thick and thin and there will always be plenty of thin.
You have achieved the holy grail of investing of having a share yielding 7.6% on buying price, producing income at cost of zero, zilch nothing if you took out your stake and also income from the re-invested dividends into your Snowball.
If you buy into a Investment Trust that owns shares to pay your dividends, you will buy into their enhanced dividend yield as in the earlier working example of CMPI which owns Investment Trusts to do the same.
Above are shares from CMPI, see below.
If you want to make a dummy portfolio to learn more about the Trusts in your Snowball, the above could be a good starting point.
Maybe avoid the really low yielders as they will be a drag on your income.
A target yield of around 7%.
7% because it double your income over ten years, if you can re-invest your dividends at 7% plus.
A passive income plan built around investing in dividend shares could be a simple but potentially lucrative way to earn money without working for it.
Posted by Christopher Ruane
Published 5 July
When investing, your capital is at risk. The value of your investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you put in.
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One popular way to earn passive income is investing in shares that pay dividends. It is an approach that can be tailored to someone’s individual financial circumstances.
It can also be pretty lucrative, especially if that someone has patience to wait and adopt a long-term approach to investing.
As an illustration, here is how they could target a monthly average passive income of £841 from an initial investment of £20k.
Let me explain how I arrived at that number. It is based on an investor compounding £20k at 9% annually for two decades, then generating a passive income from it at a 9% yield.
That compounding could involve both capital gain and any dividends paid. Share prices can fall though, and that also would affect the overall performance, so the final figure is by no means guaranteed.
As for a 9% yield 20 years down the line, based on today’s market there are some quality shares yielding that much – but careful selection is important. Some shares have high yields because investors doubt that the dividend can be sustained.
What sort of shares do I have in mind here? As an example, one I think investors should consider is FTSE 100 asset manager M&G (LSE: MNG).
For some years, it has had a policy of aiming to maintain or grow its dividend annually. It has recently simplified that to a policy of targeting annual increases in the dividend per share. I see that as a vote of confidence by the company’s board.
That is likely music to shareholders’ ears, especially as M&G already yields an impressive 7.8%. That is over double the FTSE 100 average.
The company has a number of strengths, including a large customer base, strong brand and long experience in asset management.
A recent tie-up with a Japanese financial services firm could help bring in more funds to manage. I see that as positive, because one of the risks that has been concerning me about M&G shares is that policyholders have been withdrawing more funds than they put in. That is a risk to profits.
All shares have risks, of course. One simple way smart investors aim to mitigate them is to diversify across different shares. Twenty grand is ample to do that.
It is also important to choose high-quality shares trading at attractive prices. It can be hard to know whether shares really fit that bill. Like billionaire investor Warren Buffett, I therefore stick to businesses I feel confident I can understand.
It is all very well having a passive income plan – but how can someone turn it into reality? A useful first step, in my view, is to set up a way to put the £20k to work in the market. Actually, it is possible to start with less, but the passive income streams would be proportionately smaller.
To do that, an investor could compare some different options for a share-dealing account, Stocks and Shares ISA or share trading app.
Do you like the idea of dividend income?
The prospect of investing in a company just once, then sitting back and watching as it potentially pays a dividend out over and over?
If you’re excited by the thought of regular passive income payments, as well as the potential for significant growth on your initial investment…
Contrarian Outlook
Michael Foster, Investment Strategist
Updated: July 3, 2025
Well, that didn’t last long.
A few months ago, all we heard from the mainstream media is that the “sell America” trend was going to stick around for a long time.
Nowadays, we’re still hearing that. But one corner of the market—closed-end funds (CEFs)—is telling us something interesting: That investors are starting to turn their attention back to the US.
That’s given us an opportunity to front-run this quiet shift now, while it’s still early, with some high-yield CEFs trading at attractive discounts. In a second, I’ll walk you through the signal we’re getting from two of the biggest US-focused CEFs—one holding stocks, the other corporate bonds.
First, though, let’s talk about what the real data says about one of the biggest fears that’s been driving the so-called “sell America” theme—US debt.
This chart shows how much US households pay to manage their debt, as a percentage of disposable income. It’s the main evidence supporting the argument that fears about US economic stability are warranted.
To be fair, this chart does show a jump—about 10% in the last three years. In other words, yes, Americans’ debt costs are higher than they were in 2022. That’s a sure sign the US consumer is tapped out, right?
If this all sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same story the press pushed in 2022, with headlines like “Consumer Debt Surges at Fastest Pace in 15 Years.” Three years later, the US economy remains strong. So maybe it’s going to finally falter now?
That’s what the Wall Street Journal has been saying. In March, it published a story titled, “Consumers Keep Bailing Out the Economy. Now They Might Be Maxed Out,” and another headlined: “Recession Fears Stoke Concerns Americans Are Overstretched.”
Now let’s look at a chart that starts to dispel this fear and tell us the real story here.
Household debt payments definitely rose from their all-time low in 2021. Now they’ve leveled off at around 5.5% of disposable income. That’s about where they were in the early 2010s. Today’s level is also far below the average in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.
In other words, Americans are not maxed out. In fact, their household-debt levels are quite low. According to IMF data, US households are less indebted than those in much of Europe and Asia, as well as Australia and Canada, both of which are places thought to be fiscally responsible.
At current levels of American disposable income (which is among the highest in the world) and debt levels (one of the lowest), the average US household is paying about $282 per month on its debt. That’s hardly a lot of money for most people!
It’s also worth pointing out that the average American family’s net worth had risen to $192,700 by 2022 (when the Federal Reserve did its latest survey), fully recovering from the Great Recession:
There’s a direct line between this financial improvement and the S&P 500’s world-beating long-term performance:
US Stocks Take On All Comers—and Win
Which brings me back to that indication CEFs are giving us that investors may finally be catching on to the strength of the US consumer.
To get at that, let’s look at a major corporate-bond CEF, the PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund (PDI), and the Nuveen S&P 500 Dynamic Overwrite Fund (SPXX). As SPXX’s name says, it holds the S&P 500, but it also sells call options—a low-risk way to support its dividend.
In a June 9 article on our Contrarian Outlook website, we talked about how SPXX and PDI work together to give an investor a nicely diversified “mini-portfolio” of stocks and bonds. We also identified an international fund, the Clough Global Opportunities Fund (GLO), as a less-effective way to diversify.
With CEFs, we have two measures of performance: total return based on net asset value (NAV, or the value of a fund’s underlying portfolio) and total return based on market price.
These can be different, with NAV a better measure of the fund’s portfolio management and market price a measure of the fund’s overall performance, subject to investor whim. When we look at the total NAV returns of the US-focused funds in the past year (SPXX, in orange below, and PDI, in blue), we see that they exceed that of the more global fund, GLO (in purple), by a fair margin:
US Stock, Bond Funds’ Portfolios Top Their Global Rival …
But if we pivot away from NAV for a moment and look at GLO’s total price return, we see that the global fund, GLO, has a far better performance, returning 15% (in orange below), far higher than the 6.4% return on its NAV (in purple) and indeed ahead of SPXX.
Here’s what’s really happening: Market demand for this fund is outpacing the fundamentals by a lot. That’s causing GLO’s discount to NAV to narrow (it’s now 11.7%).
Over time, investors will likely realize that fundamentals are underperforming market demand here and that, when compared to SPXX’s 7.6% yield and PDI’s 14% payout, both funds are better contenders than GLO to deliver strong total returns alongside a rotation back into America.
And that means there’s still time to profit from these two funds and avoid the growing possibility of underperforming by holding GLO, as that fund’s market-price gains run ahead of its fundamentals, potentially setting it up for a fall.
In short, the “pivot back to America” trade is wide open in CEF-land, where big (and often monthly paid) dividends are also on the table—if you stick to the data and ignore media fearmongering.
SPXX and PDI are both well-known, smartly run CEFs. You may actually hold one or both now.
If you do, great! You’re already enjoying strong payouts and are nicely positioned for gains as “sell America” fizzles.
Global managed has two Trusts.
CPMG which own Trusts the manager considers have the best growth potential.
CPMI which own Trusts the manager considers have the best income/growth potential.
Let’s research CPMI which currently yields 6.5%
Fourth Interim Dividend for the financial year ended 31 May 2025
CT Global Managed Portfolio Trust PLC (‘the Company’) announces a fourth interim dividend in respect of the financial year ended 31 May 2025 of 2.05 pence per Income share.
This dividend is payable on 11 July 2025 to shareholders on the register on 13 June 2025, with an ex-dividend date of 12 June 2025.
The normal pattern for the Company is to pay four quarterly interim dividends per financial year.
For the full financial year ended 31 May 2025, total dividends have increased by 2.7% to 7.6 pence per Income share (financial year ended 31 May 2024: 7.40 pence per Income share).
Financial year to 31 May 2026
In the absence of unforeseen circumstances, it is the Board’s current intention to pay four quarterly interim dividends each of at least 1.9 pence per Income share and that the aggregate dividends for the financial year to 31 May 2026 will be at least 7.6 pence per Income share (2025: 7.6 pence per Income share).
Whilst it’s difficult to make a capital gain but not impossible, a steady income producer to provide funds to re-invest into your snowball, as you build up your knowledge of the portfolio shares held within the Trust.
If you are able to buy just before the next xd date, you could receive 5 dividends in a little over a year yielding around 8%, one of the safest dividends in the Investment Trust Universe.
A equal weighted Investment Trust portfolio of higher risk and lower risk shares.
The blended yield is 8.9%, maybe for those that are closer to their retirement date, who have less time to recover from buying a clunker, although that is still a possibility.
This is definitely
But it is definitely a tale of the tail and not the dog.
Everything crossed for a market crash were you could get a better yield.
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