City of London Investment Group Funds under management increased to US$10.9 billion

City of London (LSE: CLIG) announces half year results for the six months to 31st December 2020.

HALF YEAR SUMMARY

SENIOR MANAGEMENT CHANGES

City of London Investment Group is pleased to announce that Deepranjan Agrawal has been appointed as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Alan Hoyt has been appointed as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) with immediate effect. Both individuals will continue to report to Tom Griffith, Chief Executive Officer of the Group. 

Deep Agrawal joined the Company in January 2020 and has been managing the Group’s finance function. Deep’s experience includes over sixteen years in public practice with Deloitte and, more recently, three years with RSM, serving clients within the asset management industry. Deep has a wealth of relevant knowledge having served a range of asset management companies  including large and small investment managers, Investment Trusts and UK authorised funds. Deep completed his Master of Commerce degree from the University of Pune, India and is a Chartered Accountant.

Alan Hoyt joined the Company in 2009 and has over 25 years of experience in the IT industry. Prior to joining CLIM, Alan worked as the Chief Technology Officer for PLANCO, a Hartford Life Company, where his role was expanded to include Vice President. Before PLANCO, Alan held positions at The Vanguard Group, New York Life Benefit Services, and as a Technology Consultant in Boston. Alan holds a Masters in Computer Information Services from Bentley College and a Bachelors in Science from the University of Massachusetts as well as certificates from the Wharton Executive Management program.

Barry Aling, Chairman of City of London Investment Group, said: “In the wake of our merger with Karpus Management Inc. towards the end of 2020, the integration of the Group finance and IT functions is a key element to realising the benefits of the transaction. In that regard, both Deep and Alan’s contribution take on additional importance and we welcome them in their new roles.”

CHAIRMAN’S STATEMENT

If a salutary reminder was needed of the degree to which globalisation has made the world economically interdependent, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 has provided it like no other in the post-war era. Re-reading my last interim statement, written just four weeks before global lockdowns led to a free-fall in equity markets, provides an emphatic reminder that managing extreme volatility is integral to the investment philosophy that we employ in managing clients’ assets. This value-driven philosophy underpins the rationale that we employed on behalf of our shareholders, as we successfully completed the KIM merger in October, an event to which I will return below. For reasons of consistency and comparison, commentary in this report relating to assets and performance will refer to our two post-merger operating companies separately, City of London Investment Management (CLIM) and Karpus Investment Management (KIM), while financial and shareholder-related information will refer generally to the holding company, CLIG.

CLIG & COVID

Our CEO, Tom Griffith, will set out in his report some of the challenges and achievements that were addressed over the last six months in confronting the need for remote working for extended periods across our entire business. Although much preparatory groundwork was in place to handle “conventional” disaster recovery events, no one could have foreseen the scale and length of disruption caused by COVID-19. The positive results for the half-year period, which are detailed in this report, are due in no small measure to a working philosophy of “going the extra mile” across the whole Group. To that end, I want to extend the Board’s sincere thanks and appreciation to Tom and all of our employees, including those at KIM, for their superb efforts in navigating these challenges with such dedication and professionalism.

Cautious optimism for 2021

Thankfully, the evolution of co-ordinated central bank intervention in the major OECD economies has helped mitigate the immediate domino effect of economic contraction in terms of employment and socio-economic hardship, albeit at considerable cost. In turn, these measures have allowed asset markets to look beyond the current hiatus to the recovery potential that will emerge in the post-vaccine medium term. The ironic outcome is that while governments across the globe battled with unprecedented threats to public health in 2020, fiscal pump-priming propelled many equity markets to all-time highs. In comparison with Europe and North America, the impact of COVID-19 on many emerging economies was more modest, which may help to explain the strong relative performance of the MXEF emerging market index which closed the year at 1291, up 31% from the June closing level, outstripping the recovery in the key global equity indices.

While many will hope that the new US President will encourage a less polarised political discourse in both the domestic and international arenas, there is little doubt that he faces many of the same challenges as his predecessor, be it COVID-19, trade friction or an unsustainable deficit. While a de-escalation in trade friction will assist the post-pandemic global recovery, the possibility of higher taxes and anti-trust policies towards the tech giants from a Democratic administration could test inflated US equity valuations, notably in the Nasdaq universe. Although debt markets remain subdued, the slight rise on US Treasury yields over the last six months suggests early signs that asset price inflation could seep into the wider economy later in the year. But while emerging equity and domestic debt markets cannot be immune to these challenges, the EM space in particular continues to represent compelling value with consensus estimates of an MXEF forward price earnings ratio of 15.6, less than half the equivalent rating for Nasdaq.

Assets and performance

The rebound in CLIM assets from the March 2020 lows continued apace virtually throughout the half year to 31st December 2020 with total funds under management (FuM) rising 31% to an all-time high of US$7.2 billion with strong gains made in both the emerging and international products. FuM level in international strategies reached US$1.7 billion at the end of 2020. Likewise, relative performance of all strategies, which suffered from a dramatic widening of closed-end fund (CEF) discounts in March/April, made excellent progress in the latest half year. The emerging market product posted a relative gain of 6.4%, developed 14.6% and opportunistic value 11.6% against their respective benchmarks over the last six months with the result that more than 95% of CLIM’s FuM achieved above average performance for 2020 as a whole. Undoubtedly, a major contributor to this success lies in the sharp narrowing of discounts in the CEF universe over recent months. In the EM strategy for example, the size weighted average discount (SWAD) narrowed from a March high of 22.8% to 14.6% at year-end. While it is true that this rate of discount narrowing is, by definition, unsustainable, a year-end SWAD in the mid-teens is still well above the longer term averages, suggesting that further upside is still possible from this single metric.

Although the KIM merger was only completed on 1st October 2020, it is important for shareholders to view its performance over that three-month period against 2020 as a whole in order to see the underlying trends in the business. KIM’s FuM over the last six months rose 6% to US$3.7 billion, an all-time record level and an increase of 34% from the 2020 lows in March. The pace of recovery in KIM’s FuM during 2020 reflects the more muted trading conditions in US debt markets, which account for c.60% of KIM’s assets but it was particularly pleasing to note that more than 98% of KIM’s client assets were retained in the wake of the merger, signalling a very high level of client loyalty to the KIM brand. Of equal importance is the fact that the range of overall FuM levels at KIM across calendar 2020 was just 34% between the March lows and year-end (US$2.8 – US$3.7 billion), compared with 91% (US$3.8 – US$7.2 billion) for CLIM. This countervailing trend in asset volatility represents a central positive factor in the long-term benefits that should derive from the merger.

Results

Profit before tax for the combined entity for the six months to 31st December 2020 was £8.8 million (31st December 2019: £6.3 million). Underlying profit before tax* for the combined entity for the six months to 31st December 2020 was £11.2 million (31st December 2019: £6.2 million). These results include a robust three-month contribution from KIM of £3.4 million in the latest quarter and £7.8 million from CLIM over the full period, the latter equating to a 26% year-on-year increase. Net fee income of £22.6 million included £5.1 million from KIM and £17.5 million from CLIM, the latter a 6% YOY increase. Although CLIM’s FuM rose 31% over the six months, average FuM across the six-month period was only 14% ahead of the comparable figure for 2019, in addition to which US dollar weakness and a slightly lower average fee margin of 74bp pared the gain somewhat in sterling terms. Once again, an encouragingly high level of participation in the Employee Incentive Plan (EIP) served to further align the interests of shareholders and employees while access to this Plan will be extended to KIM employees for the first time in the current year. Fully diluted earnings per share for the first half were 17.4p per share on a statutory basis, while underlying fully diluted earnings per share* were 23.4p, an increase of 24% YOY.

Dividends

The recovery momentum achieved in the first half of our financial year, added to the impetus provided by the KIM merger from October provides grounds for cautious optimism for the year as a whole. To that end, your Board is pleased to announce a 1p increase in the interim dividend to 11p per share, equivalent to a 10% increase. This increase makes full provision for the merger-related costs that will impact reported profits in the current year and, within the policy parameters of 1.2 times cover on a five-year rolling basis, leaves the Group with a prudent margin of “headroom” for any unforeseen events in the second half of the year.

The Board

Following the KIM merger, we were delighted to welcome George Karpus as a non-independent, Non-Executive Director (NED) and Dan Lippincott as an Executive Director in October. Although the pandemic has restricted our ability to meet physically in the early post-merger period, George and Dan have already participated actively in the Board’s deliberations.

Susannah Nicklin resigned from the Board in September 2020 after serving three years as a NED and we would like to thank Susannah for her valuable contribution to the Group during a transformative period in its development. Rian Dartnell, who served as a Director for five years from 2011 to 2016, rejoined the Board following Susannah’s departure. Given Rian’s extensive experience in the asset management industry and his familiarity with CLIG over many years, we are pleased to welcome him back into the fold. In the wake of Susannah’s departure, Peter Roth was appointed Senior Independent Director while Rian has assumed Chair of the Remuneration Committee and Jane Stabile has replaced Susannah as Chair of the Nomination Committee.

Following these changes, we anticipate a transitional period before we are able to restore the appropriate level of independent representation at the Board level, as defined in the UK Corporate Governance Code. Post 31st December 2020, Tazim Essani has joined the Board as an independent NED from 1st February 2021. Tazim has over 30 years of experience and has a significant track record in strategy and M&A in financial services in the UK and internationally covering integration, management transition and realisation of synergy benefits.

Outlook

Disruptive though the pandemic has been for so many, it has in some ways accelerated the development of technology-led working practices that might otherwise have taken several years. We believe that these trends can assist us in harnessing the potential gains that can flow from the KIM merger more quickly than might otherwise have been the case as we address operational integration of the two businesses. At the same time, rigorous attention to value-driven investment processes for institutional and wealth management clients alike, together with prudential cost controls will remain core drivers in meeting our performance objectives. Our results through the very testing conditions of the last six months and the increasingly diverse business mix that will flow from the KIM merger, provide a sound basis for cautious optimism.

Barry Aling

Chairman

12th February 2021