Gresham House Strategic (GHS), which sits in the UK smaller companies sector, says that in view of strong performance and the outlook for its portfolio, it is proposing to increase its target dividend increase from 15% to 20%, for the completed financial year to March 2020.
Click here to read our coverage from June of the company’s annual results to end-March 2020.
15% per annum dividend growth remains the long-term target
In line with the desire to return a sustainable proportion of realised profits, GHS’s long-term expectation remains to grow the dividend at 15% per annum in future years.
David Potter, chair of GHS, noted the following: “GHS’s NAV has grown 34.9% since inception August 2015 through to the end of August 2020, which has translated to a share price total return of 38%. A challenging time for UK companies, the FTSE small cap index (ex-Investment Trusts) is up only 4.8% in comparison.”
The board has confidence in the current portfolio and its ability to continue to deliver strong NAV growth in future years. We have recently acquired several new investments during this opportunity-rich period of economic disruption which the investment manager believes have excellent medium-term prospects for capital growth. Furthermore, GHS has shown that it can exit large positions, like IMI Mobile, to crystallise those returns for shareholders.”
GHS: Gresham House Strategic increases dividend growth target to 20%