City of London Investment Group plc (LON:CLIG), a leading specialist asset management group offering a range of institutional products investing in closed-end funds, has announced that as at 30th September 2020, FuM were US$5.9 billion (£4.6 billion). This compares with US$5.5 billion (£4.4 billion) at the Company’s year-end on 30th June 2020.
IM Performance
Performance was ahead of the benchmark over the quarter in all strategies ex-Frontier. Specifically, in the Emerging Market (EM) strategy NAV performances were positive. In both the International (INTL) and Opportunistic Value (OV) strategies relative returns were driven by strong NAV performance and positive discount effects. The Frontier strategy was negatively impacted via sharply wider discounts.
The EM strategy had net inflows of US$39 million, while the Frontier strategy had outflows of US$107 million over the period. Net flows were flat for the INTL and OV strategies.
Operations
The Group’s income currently accrues at a weighted average rate of approximately 74 basis points of FuM. “Fixed” costs are c. 1.1 million per month, and accordingly the current run-rate for operating profit, before profit-share of 30% is approximately 1.7 million per month based upon current FuM and a US$/£ exchange rate of US$1.29 to 1 as at 30th September 2020.
The Group estimates that the post-tax profit before exceptional items of c. £1.8 million in relation to the KMI merger for the first three months of the year will be approximately 2.8 million (2019: 2.4 million) and post-tax profit after charging the exceptional items as detailed above for the first three months of the year will be approximately 1.0 million (2019: 2.4 million).
Dividends
The final dividend of 20 pence per share, subject to approval at the AGM on 19th October 2020, will be paid on 30th October 2020, bringing the total dividend for the financial year 2019-20 to 30 pence (2018-19: 40.5 pence, including the special dividend of 13.5 pence paid in March 2019).
Update on Merger of CLIG with KMI
As previously announced, City of London Investment Group completed the merger with Karpus Management Inc on 1st October 2020. KMI’s client approval process resulted in approximately 98% of client assets being retained. As at 30th September 2020, KMI had US$3.6 billion of FuM. On a consolidated basis, as of 1st October 2020, the Group managed client assets of approximately US$9.5 billion.
