Large listed investment company (LIC) WAM Capital Limited (ASX: WAM) announced its HY21 dividend.
WAM Capital is one of the biggest LICs on the ASX. Its job is to invest in other ASX shares for shareholders and then it pays them dividends from that investment profit.
WAM Capital HY21 dividend
The LIC’s board decided to pay a FY21 fully franked interim dividend of 7.75 cents per share. This dividend is the same as last year’s interim payment.
WAM said that this dividend means the WAM Capital share price currently represents an annualised fully franked dividend yield of 6.9%.
Wilson Asset Management said that this dividend had been achieved through the strong performance of the investment portfolio since inception and the profit reserve available.
In the financial year to date, the WAM Capital investment portfolio has increased 22.8%, outperforming the S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Accumulation Index by 7.1% with an average cash holding of 11%. Over the 2020 calendar year, the WAM Capital investment portfolio increased by 9.6%, outperforming the index by 6% with an average cash holding of 16.9%.
Since inception in August 1999, the WAM Capital investment portfolio has increased by 16.4% per annum, outperforming the index by 8.1%.
It’s important to note that all of the above numbers are before expenses, fees and taxes, so the net returns to shareholders have been a bit lower than the above quoted returns.
However, WAM Capital pointed out that the total shareholder return (TSR) in the financial year to date was 26.8% – that includes changes in the level of the premium that the WAM Capital share price is valued at compared to the net tangible assets (NTA) per share is.
Essentially, LICs own a basket of shares within the company. The market capitalisation value of the LIC can be higher or lower than the value of the underlying basket of shares. In other words, investors can sometimes buy $1 of shares for less, or more, than $1 represented by the share price.
Is it a good time to buy WAM Capital shares?
The WAM Capital share price of $2.25 is currently at a 25% premium to the December 2020 pre-tax NTA of $1.80 per share. That’s a very expensive premium in the LIC world. The fully franked dividend yield of 7% is fairly attractive, but I’m not sure that yield can be sustained forever when you look at the yield on the pre-tax NTA – WAM will need to keep generating strong investment returns just to maintain that dividend.
There are other ASX dividend shares I’d rather buy such as Magellan Financial Group Ltd (ASX: MFG).
