M&G Credit Income Investment Trust plc 2026 Interim Results
|
M&G Credit Income Investment Trust plc (MGCI)
LEI: 549300E9W63X1E5A3N24 M&G Credit Income Investment Trust plc Half Year Report and unaudited Condensed Financial Statements for the six months ended 30 June 2026 M&G Credit Income Investment Trust plc (the ‘Company’) announces its unaudited half yearly results for the six months ended 30 June 2026. Highlights for the six months ended 30 June 2026
Chairman’s comment David Simpson, Chairman of M&G Credit Income Investment Trust plc, commented: ‘The Company delivered a positive NAV total return during the first half of 2026, while maintaining a clear and transparent policy of paying attractive quarterly dividends. The portfolio remained defensively positioned against a backdrop of tight credit spreads and heightened geopolitical uncertainty, and the Investment Manager continued to identify selective opportunities across public and private credit markets. Your Company’s portfolio has limited interest rate sensitivity compared to traditional fixed-rate bonds, helping it to protect value if rates rise while capturing rising income.’ Outlook The Board believes the Company remains well positioned to continue delivering attractive income, supported by a diversified portfolio, disciplined credit selection and the flexibility to deploy capital when market conditions present more compelling opportunities. Contact details: AIFM and Investment Manager M&G Alternatives Investment Management Limited 10 Fenchurch Avenue, London EC3M 5AG Website: mandg.com/investments/private-investor/en-gb Telephone: +44 (0) 800 390 390 Company Secretary MUFG Corporate Governance Limited Central Square, 29 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL Telephone: 0333 300 1932 Broker Winterflood Securities Limited Riverbank House, 2 Swan Lane, London EC4R 3GA The full Half Year Report is available on the Company’s website at mandg.com/creditincomeinvestmenttrust Chairman’s statement High demand has enabled your Company to issue 9.8 million Ordinary Shares between 1 January 2026 and 17 September 2026. We have today announced a proposed placing and retail offer of further Ordinary Shares. Your Company’s portfolio offers considerable protection from rising interest rates while providing attractive income. Performance Your Company delivered a NAV total return of 2.36% for the six months to 30 June 2026, compared to the benchmark of SONIA +4% which returned 3.82%. The Company outperformed investment grade fixed income indices such as the ICE BofA Sterling Corporate and Collateralised Index and the ICE BofA 1-3 Year BBB Sterling Corporate and Collateralised Index, which returned +0.96% and +1.69%, respectively. The Company’s NAV total return also compared favourably with high yield markets, with the ICE BofA European Currency Non-Financial High Yield 2% Constrained Index returning +2.00%. The Investment Manager continued to position the portfolio defensively as credit spreads remained close to historically tight levels which, in its opinion, did not adequately compensate investors for the range of macroeconomic, geopolitical and policy risks still present. Market conditions changed significantly over the half year. The first quarter was characterised by heightened volatility following the escalation of tensions involving Iran, an artificial intelligence-related sell off in software companies and adverse news about private credit in the US. This resulted in wider credit spreads and weaker market sentiment. However, as concerns over immediate energy supply disruption eased and investors refocused on resilient corporate fundamentals, credit spreads retraced much of their earlier widening during the second quarter. In a tight credit spread environment, deploying capital in line with the Company’s long-term return target can be challenging. However, during the period, the Investment Manager was able to benefit from the macroeconomic backdrop, using its flexibility to invest across asset classes, to rotate meaningfully out of public credit and into private credit, realising capital gains and improving the portfolio yield. The Board continues to support the Investment Manager’s approach, which seeks to balance near-term income generation with capital preservation and the flexibility to deploy capital when market conditions provide more compelling opportunities. Share issuance, discount management and proposed fundraising Demand for the Company’s shares remained positive during the period, with a net 5.6 million Ordinary Shares issued. Following significant issuance in January and February, March’s heightened market volatility saw the Ordinary Share price move briefly to a discount to NAV. In accordance with the Company’s Zero Discount Policy, the Company recommenced share repurchases and bought back Ordinary Shares into Treasury. Encouragingly, the share price subsequently returned to a premium to NAV as market sentiment improved. The Company’s Ordinary Share price traded at an average premium to NAV of 0.3% during the period ended 30 June 2026. On 30 June 2026, the Ordinary Share price was 93.10p, representing a 1.8% premium to NAV as at that date. Since the period end, a further 4,175,000 Ordinary Shares have been issued. Your Board remains committed to the Zero Discount Policy, which seeks to ensure that Ordinary Shares trade close to NAV in normal market conditions and supports liquidity for shareholders. In light of current demand, we have today announced a proposed placing and retail offer of Ordinary Shares. Dividends Your board understands that regular income is a key consideration of many investors. Since inception, we have maintained a clear and transparent policy of paying attractive quarterly dividends. Your Company is currently paying four quarterly interim dividends at an annual rate of SONIA +4%, calculated by reference to the adjusted opening NAV as at 1 January 2026. The Company paid dividends of 1.73p and 1.75p per Ordinary Share for the quarters to 31 March 2026 and 30 June 2026, respectively. The Investment Manager continues to believe that an annual total return, and ultimately a dividend yield, of SONIA +4% remains achievable over the long term, although there can be no guarantee that this will be achieved in any individual year. Outlook The outlook for credit markets remains finely balanced. While global economic activity has proved resilient and financial markets have recovered from the volatility experienced earlier in the year, geopolitical risks remain elevated. The Middle East remains very unstable and energy markets are correspondingly volatile. Policymakers are trying to balance price stability against the risk of placing additional pressure on slowing economies, particularly in the UK and Europe. Despite this backdrop, credit markets have demonstrated resilience. Following the spread widening seen during the first quarter, risk appetite recovered strongly and corporate credit spreads ended the period once again close to historically tight levels. This has been underpinned by supportive technical factors, including strong investor demand and well-supported primary issuance markets. In this environment, the Investment Manager intends to maintain a disciplined and selective approach to capital allocation, prioritising assets that offer resilient income and more defensible cash flows. This positioning is not intended simply to reduce risk, but to preserve flexibility and enable the Company to deploy capital into more attractive opportunities when periods of volatility create improved entry points and more compelling prospective returns. The Company remains well positioned for a range of market outcomes with a diversified portfolio, predominantly investment grade credit quality and access to M&G’s extensive public and private credit capabilities. It has access to a fully undrawn £40 million revolving credit facility and there is approximately £40 million invested in high credit quality ABS funds, which can be redeployed efficiently should market dislocations occur. Your Company’s predominantly floating-rate portfolio and low duration offer considerable protection against interest rate rises compared to traditional fixed-income strategies. If interest rates stay higher for longer, shareholders also benefit from the higher income which is generated. The Board believes that the Company is well placed to continue delivering attractive income while remaining ready to capitalise on opportunities as they emerge. David Simpson Chairman 18 September 2026 Financial highlights Key data
Return and dividends per Ordinary Share
a Alternative performance measure. Please see pages 35 to 36 in the full Half Year Report for further information. b The total dividends declared in respect of each period equated to a dividend yield of SONIA +4% on the adjusted opening NAV. Investment manager’s report The first half of 2026 was dominated by geopolitical developments in the Middle East, evolving monetary policy expectations and continued strength in credit markets despite a more uncertain macroeconomic backdrop. The escalation of conflict between the US and Iran in late February triggered a sharp rise in energy prices and heightened concerns around inflation, global growth and supply chain disruption. Government bond yields moved higher as markets reassessed the path of future interest rates, while credit spreads widened during March. However, the move proved relatively modest given the scale of the geopolitical shock and was short-lived. Credit markets recovered during the second quarter as investors looked through near-term uncertainty, supported by resilient corporate fundamentals and strong demand for fixed income assets. By the end of June, both investment-grade and high-yield credit spreads had returned to levels close to their historic tights. Against this backdrop, we maintained our deliberately defensive positioning, reflecting our view that public credit markets continue to offer limited compensation for the breadth of macroeconomic, geopolitical and policy risks facing investors. Despite periods of volatility, market technicals remained robust, with investor demand continuing to exceed new issuance supply across many areas of the credit market. While this has helped support valuations, we believe it leaves credit spreads vulnerable to future repricing should economic or geopolitical risks deteriorate. Demand for the Company’s shares remained strong at the beginning of the year, resulting in the issuance of 5.8 million ordinary shares up to the end of February. We deployed the proceeds, alongside existing liquidity, across both public and private markets, while continuing to focus on opportunities where we believed relative value remained attractive. During the period, approximately £15 million was invested into private credit opportunities spanning infrastructure, real estate, asset-backed finance and corporate lending transactions across Europe and the UK. These investments included exposure to operational data centre infrastructure, logistics real estate, infrastructure-backed receivables and a number of regulatory capital opportunities, an area where we continue to identify particularly attractive risk-adjusted returns. Public market activity during the first half of 2026 remained highly selective, reflecting our view that spreads in many areas of the market offered limited value. Rather than increasing broad market exposure, we focused on identifying individual credits where internal research suggested risk was being mispriced and where there was potential for both attractive carry and further spread compression. Purchases were concentrated across investment-grade opportunities, structured credit and selectively chosen high-yield new issues, where spreads and risk-adjusted returns appeared attractive in the context of prevailing market valuations. Overall, public market activity was characterised by disciplined security selection, active trading and a willingness to use the liquidity of public markets both to capture capital appreciation and to fund higher-conviction opportunities elsewhere in the portfolio. As the year progressed, the portfolio also actively realised gains in a number of public bond holdings where spreads had tightened significantly from purchase levels, recycling capital into private opportunities where we identified more compelling relative value. As a result, portfolio yield increased during the period, while maintaining the portfolio’s average investment-grade credit quality. The flexibility to allocate capital across both public and private markets remains one of the Company’s key differentiators. In our opinion, relative value remains more attractive across many areas of private credit, where investors can earn an additional illiquidity premium compared with comparable publicly traded assets. This continued to drive our preference for private market deployment during the period and resulted in the portfolio finishing the half year once again predominantly invested in private assets. Credit quality remained a key focus throughout the period. We continued to prioritise investments supported by resilient cashflows and strong underlying fundamentals. We believe this disciplined positioning is particularly important given the highly uncertain economic outlook, helping to preserve capital when market compensation is limited while retaining the flexibility to act dynamically and add risk meaningfully as more attractive entry points emerge. We actively monitor the portfolio for signs of distress and currently have exposure to three issuers, amounting to 0.70% of the latest published NAV, which are either in technical default or at some stage of a restructuring process. These assets are already marked to market or, in respect of non-public market instruments, reserved against in the Company’s latest published NAV. The funded private asset portion of the portfolio increased over the period to 52.44% from 46.42% at 31 December 2025, supported by a healthy pipeline of private credit opportunities. The portfolio also retains approximately 8% in illiquid publicly listed assets, which are intended to be held to maturity. Outlook Despite generally supportive market conditions, investors continue to face significant risks to the outlook for growth, inflation and interest rates. Ongoing tensions in the Middle East, together with the potential for further disruption to global energy markets and supply chains, present a meaningful risk to economic growth and inflation. To date, financial markets have remained relatively resilient, largely looking through the energy crisis during the spring and summer. However, a prolonged period of elevated energy prices is set to place renewed pressure on corporate profitability, weigh on consumer spending, and shift the forecast toward near-term interest rate hikes. This pressure is particularly acute in Europe and the UK, where economies face a higher exposure to imported energy costs. Against this backdrop, the risk of more persistent inflation and a higher-for-longer interest-rate environment remains an important consideration for investors. The Company’s predominantly floating-rate portfolio and low duration reduce sensitivity to interest rate movements relative to traditional fixed income strategies. This provides a degree of protection and resilience should rates remain elevated for longer than expected. In addition, the Company’s SONIA-linked dividend target allows shareholders to continue benefiting from an elevated level of income while interest rates remain higher. While many higher-quality companies remain well positioned to withstand a higher-rate environment, refinancing costs across the corporate sector have risen materially from the ultra-low-rate era. Although this is unlikely to result in widespread distress among investment-grade borrowers, it is likely to place greater pressure on weaker business models and highly leveraged issuers. Credit spreads remain close to historically tight levels and, in our view, offer limited protection against a deterioration in economic conditions, an escalation in geopolitical tensions or a broader repricing of risk assets. This supports our continued preference for higher-quality credit and defensive positioning, even where this means forgoing incremental yield. In this environment, borrower resilience, financial discipline and cash flow generation are increasingly important differentiators. Our focus remains firmly on bottom-up credit analysis, identifying issuers where we believe the market is mispricing risk and avoiding situations where prospective returns do not adequately compensate investors for the underlying credit exposure. This valuation-led approach has long been central to the Company’s investment philosophy and is particularly relevant when market valuations leave little room for error. In assessing the key risks over the coming quarters, it is also important to consider the broad impact of artificial intelligence (AI) across global industries. While the associated growth potential is considerable, the theme has expanded beyond US equity markets and is increasingly relevant across asset classes, including global credit markets. The scale of AI-related debt issuance is affecting pricing dynamics in fixed income, while the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure financing represents a significant shift in global capital allocation, transferring some technology-sector risk from equity markets into the broader fixed-income market. The Company has not participated in recent hyperscaler debt issuance on relative-value grounds and at present has limited exposure to AI-themed issuance. We continue to favour defensive corporate issuers supported by tangible assets and predictable free cash flow. The Company’s flexible mandate across public and private credit markets remains a key advantage in this environment. Supported by M&G’s extensive credit research platform and longstanding presence in private markets, we can access a broad opportunity set and allocate dynamically to areas where we believe value is most compelling. This ‘best of both worlds’ approach enables the portfolio to benefit from the structural protections, stronger covenant packages and enhanced returns available in private credit, while public markets provide liquidity and the ability to reposition the portfolio efficiently as opportunities arise. While the near-term outlook is likely to remain influenced by geopolitical developments and macroeconomic uncertainty, periods of volatility can create attractive opportunities for long-term investors. Should market dislocations emerge and credit spreads reprice to more attractive levels, the Company remains well positioned to deploy capital selectively where valuations become disconnected from underlying fundamentals. Consistent with our longstanding investment approach, we will continue to prioritise capital preservation, stable income generation and disciplined risk-taking, while remaining patient until prospective returns appropriately compensate for the risks undertaken. M&G Alternatives Investment Management Limited 18 September 2026 Portfolio analysis Portfolio overview
Source: State Street Geographical exposure
* Excluding cash on deposit and derivatives. Source: M&G and State Street as at 30 June 2026 Credit rating breakdown
Source: State Street Note:ELF is an open-ended fund managed by M&G that invests in leveraged loans issued by, generally, substantial private companies located in the UK and Continental Europe. ELF is not rated and the Investment Manager has determined an implied rating for this investment, utilising rating methodologies typically attributable to collateralised loan obligations. On this basis, 78% of the Company’s investment in ELF has been ascribed as being investment grade, and 22% has been ascribed as being sub-investment grade. The board actively monitors the implied rating to ensure that the original rating remains appropriate. Top 20 holdings
a Including cash on deposit and derivatives. Further Information The full Half Year Report and unaudited Condensed Financial Statements can be obtained from the Company’s website at www.mandg.co.uk/creditincomeinvestmenttrust or by contacting the Company Secretary at mandgcredit@cm.mpms.mufg.com. It has also been submitted in full unedited text to the Financial Conduct Authority’s National Storage Mechanism and is available for inspection atdata.fca.org.uk/#/nsm/nationalstoragemechanismin accordance with DTR 6.3.5(1A) of the Financial Conduct Authority’s Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules. For further information in relation to the Company please visit:https://www.mandg.com/investments/private-investor/en-gb/investing-with-mandg/investment-options/mandg-credit-income-investment-trust Dissemination of a Regulatory Announcement, transmitted by EQS Group. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. |
| ISIN: | GB00BFYYL325, GB00BFYYT831 |
| Category Code: | MSCL |
| TIDM: | MGCI |
| LEI Code: | 549300E9W63X1E5A3N24 |
| Sequence No.: | 443627 |
| EQS News ID: | 2401230 |
| End of Announcement | EQS News Service |
|
|