Australian listed investment company (LIC), Argo Investments, has announced a full-year profit of $218.9 million, which was 3.5 per cent higher compared to last year thanks to higher dividends from Macquarie Group, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto.
Following on from this, the board raised dividends for the sixth successive year, declaring a final dividend of 16 cents per share fully franked.
Argo’s managing director, Jason Beddow, said the past year showed “synchronised economic growth in most regions” with the Australian market being no exception to that, although the underlying sector performance varied considerably with the large banks and Telstra delivering weaker performances while metals and mining, and technology grew sharply.
During the year, Argo held an underweight position in metals and mining, with a focus on smaller and mid-size resources companies.
Argo purchased $259 million of long-term investments and proceeds of $201 million were received from long-term investment sales.
“Argo’s straightforward and resilient business model continues to produce increasing fully franked dividends and solid capital gains,” Beddow said.
“We keep operating costs low and manage the portfolio in a tax-aware manner to focus on maximising long-term returns to our shareholders.”
The company said some of portfolio sales helped crystallise substantial capital gains, which allowed the firm to include a 4 cent a share LIC capital gain component in its final dividend.
Although the firm reduced the total number of stocks by five to 93 it also added to its 30 existing holdings.
New stocks added to its portfolio during the past year included Oil Search, Nufarm, Paragon Care, Bega Cheese and Novonix.
