Gervais Williams to issue £50m of shares on income trust
Smaller companies star seeking to boost trust assets through a ‘C-share’ issue.
Mam Funds’ Gervais Williams is looking to raise an additional £50m for his £47.8m Diverse Income investment trust.
The trust has announced a ‘C-share’ issue to the stockmarket.
Mr Williams, the former head of smaller companies at Gartmore, has run the fund with co-manager Martin Turner since its launch in April last year.
Mr Williams said at the trust’s first redemption opportunity in May this year, no shareholders at all asked to participate - suggesting investor appetite for the trust remains strong.
The C-shares will have a placing price of 50p - a premium to the trust’s initial net asset value per share of 48.8p.
They will have a target yield of 4 per cent annualised.
The close on the offer and placing periods is July 11.
“The trust has a conventional structure with just one class of ordinary share in issue and has the authority to issue up to 10 per cent in new shares - and also has authority to issue up to 100m C-shares in the same way,” Mr Williams said.
In the year to June 1 the trust reported a share price loss of 2.8 per cent, compared with a sector average loss of 5.3 per cent loss according to Morningstar. The FTSE All Share index of UK equities lost 8.5 per cent in the same period.