Income star Beagles buys into Tesco

JO Hambro Capital Management's (JOHCM) Clive Beagles has bought into UK food giant Tesco for the first time in seven years amid expectations the group will renew its focus on payouts.

Beagles, running one of the top performing funds in the UK Equity Income sector, the £879m JOHCM UK Equity Income fund, has taken a position in Tesco following the supermarket giant's recent share price fall. "We have not owned Tesco in the fund for over seven years - for the vast majority of that time it did not yield enough to be in our universe," Beagles said in his latest update. "The latter has changed as the stock has derated and the dividend has continued to grow with earnings." Tesco yields 3.64%, up from 3.1% a year ago, while the dividend is 4.63p per share. The rising yi...