Foreign & Colonial IT interims boosted by European and Japanese equity shift
Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust reported half-year net asset value total return up 4.1% as a number of underlying strategies performed well.
Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust Plc Ordinary Units
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With the share price opening the day at 433p, net asset value (NAV) stood at 472.3p at the 30 June period end.
"Equity markets posted modest but positive returns during the first half of the year," chairman Simon Fraser said.
"Growth remained patchy in the global economy but, in the major regions, there were further signs of ongoing improvement, which led to a rise in bond yields."
The F&C board said the total dividend for 2015 "can be expected to be at least 9.6p per share", an increase of 3.2% on 2014 and the forty-fifth consecutive annual increase.
After Paul Niven took over as fund manager from Jeremy Tigue a year ago, his decision to allocate more capital to the highly performing European and Japanese markets has benefited performance.
Since Niven took over, the share price total return has outperformed its benchmark by almost 7% delivering a shareholder return of 17.1%.
FRCL's interest costs were materially reduced during the period, by £5.5m versus the period to 30 June 2014, largely as a result of the maturing of the twenty-five year 11.25% debenture at the end of 2014.