The Listed Investment Company (LIC) reported $7.6 million in profits, which compares with last year’s $8.9 million figure.
“Hastings Diversified Utilities Fund, because it has got a special constitution, is accounted for differently from all the other investments, and fluctuations in market value go through the profit,” Ross Barker, managing director at AMCIL, told InvestorDaily.
“[In] the 2012 year, we made $3.3 million and then in 2013 we only made $1.1 [million] and that was the reason the profit was down.”
The company also reported a net operating result, which represents the income generated from the investment and trading portfolios, of $6.5 million, up from $5.7 million in the previous year.
AMCIL will pay a final dividend of 3.0 cents per share fully franked on top of a special dividend of 5.0 cents. This represents a dividend increase on last year of 2.5 cents per share.
“The special [dividend] is the realised capital gain when we sold Hastings and we sold AIF [Australian Infrastructure Fund]. We sold those at particularly significant profits [and] we will pay tax on them so we can pass them back to our shareholders as franked dividends,” Mr Barker stated.
The LIC’s portfolio delivered a return of 21.1 per cent over the year, which was roughly in line with the S&P/ASX 200 Accumulation Index (22.8 per cent).
AMCIL also responded to changes in the investment climate by exiting a number of positions, including those in Bradken, Origin Energy and Mermaid Marine and trimmed positions in Commonwealth Bank, Ansell, REA Group, Westpac and Transurban.
Regarding the 2013/2014 financial year, AMCIL has an “open mind” about where it will attempt to find value in the market, said Mr Barker.
“We are not going spend money on parts of the market that we think are overvalued, such as healthcare and some of the expensive banks,” he said, “but circumstances change in the market and they can change quite quickly so you want to have some firepower ready to buy things if you think they offer good long-term or medium-term value, and perhaps the market is overlooking them.”
