Gareth Says – ‘Covid Connotations’

The Covid 19 lockdown announcement on the 23 March did cause a few disruptions to our working practices.  We are now getting back to whatever the ‘new normal’ will be, but are not in a position to issue valuations at the end of June. 

We are also in the process of migrating Aviva and Aegon valuations to a new system to cope with all the switches on the DFM, so that their computers will ‘speak’ with ours instead of manually updating every client after every switch, so we aim to be back ‘on track’ for the October valuation.  If you require an update in the meantime please contact us.

The Dividend Dilemma – M & T Income Fund

When we launched the Income Fund we set a target dividend of 4% p.a.

The launch yield was 3.52% p.a. but we had quite a bit in cash, so thought we would get close to the target.

Unfortunately Covid 19 has put paid to that.  The following major companies have either cut or stopped their dividends:

M&S, Barclays, Llloyds, RBS, ITV, Shell, BT, Antofagasta, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Glencore, Imperial Brands ……… in total 46 FTSE stocks have reduced or ceased.

It is therefore impossible to reach our target and we have decided to close the fund. We have contacted all clients concerned and offered alternative strategies.

Gareth