WS Guinness UK Equity Income Fund

The WS Guinness UK Equity Income Fund is designed to provide income and capital growth by primarily investing in UK companies that can pay sustainable, growing dividends.

The Fund provides exposure to UK dividend-paying companies. We believe that dividend payers outperform in the long term and dividend growers outperform even more. Dividend-paying companies can protect against inflation over the long term. 

The effect of dividends is apparent when comparing historic long-term returns of stocks which pay dividends with those that have not. Not only have dividend-payers outperformed on average, but dividend-growers and initiators have outperformed further still.

In addition to the compounding effect, part of the reason for this lies in the nature of dividend-paying companies. First, a history of paying a dividend – which unlike many accounting figures is a ‘hard’ cash payment – can indicate past value creation by a company. Moreover, a long history of paying dividends can instil capital discipline in company management. A commitment to a dividend leaves no room for vanity projects or frivolous uses of shareholders’ capital. A focused management team that uses the cash available to them efficiently is central to creating a well-run (and profitable) company that is able to grow and thrive in the future.

The Fund aims to achieve a yield which is excess of the FTSE All Share yield on a rolling three year basis and at least 90% on an annual basis.

Since launch in 2016, we have had a consistent approach of screening quality companies based on their record of achieving consistent above average cash flow return on investment with low financial debt.