Tigue's Foreign & Colonial trust hikes dividend by 19.7%

Jeremy Tigue's £2.6bn Foreign & Colonial investment trust has moved to satisfy income hungry shareholders after announcing a 19.7% dividend hike for 2012.

The trust will pay out a total dividend of 8.5p a share for 2012 in May; the 42nd consecutive year the company has increased payouts year-on-year. For the year, the company reported an NAV return of 13.3%, ahead of its composite benchmark return of 12.1%, which is 60% FTSE WI World ex UK indices and 40% FTSE All Share. Simon Fraser, chairman of the trust, said it plans to adopt a greater global approach in the next five years, reducing the UK weighting of the portfolio. "There are two distinct strands to our own strategy over the next five years. The first is to continue to increas...