LONDON (Alliance News) - City of London Investment Group PLC on Monday declared a special dividend for the first half of its financial year, amid a drop in profit and revenue for the period.
The UK-based asset manager said pretax profit for the six months to the end of December was GBP5.2 million, down from GBP6.6 million the year before.
This was on revenue that fell by 9.0% to GBP15.6 million from GBP17.1 million.
City of London Investment Group reported funds under management at the period-end at GBP3.6 billion, down from GBP3.9 billion on the same date a year before and also GBP3.9 billion as at July 1, 2018.
The decrease in assets was due to weakness in the emerging and frontier market sectors, as well as ongoing asset re-balancing by some of City of London's clients.
Emerging markets suffered from weaker commodity prices, pressure on economies with significant net dollar liabilities such as Turkey, and continued trade disputes. Frontier markets were brought down by the impact of dollar-debt related concerns.
City of London Investment maintained its interim ordinary dividend of 9.0 pence per share from the prior year, and also declared a special dividend of 13.5p per share.
"It is your board's view that this additional payment represents a fair balance between the need to reward shareholders while maintaining sufficient reserves to capitalise on any opportunities that may arise," said Chair Barry Aling.
"As I have made clear in this statement and as our latest results testify, 2018 proved to be a year of major challenge across the emerging markets, particularly in the half year just ended. Nevertheless, CLIG has faced many similar if not greater challenges over the years since first becoming a listed company in 2006," Aling added.
Shares in City of London Investment Group were up 3.5% at 397.00 pence on Monday.
City Lon Inv (CLIG)