CITY OF LONDON INVESTMENT GROUP PLC ("City of London" or "the Group" or "the Company" or "CLIG") TRADING UPDATE FOR THE QUARTER TO 30 SEPTEMBER 2025

LONDON, Oct. 20, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- City of London (LSE: CLIG), a leading specialist asset management group offering a range of institutional and retail products investing primarily in closed-end funds ("CEFs"), provides a trading update for its quarter ending 30 September 2025. The numbers that follow are unaudited.

Funds under Management ("FuM") increased by 4% to $11.2 billion as of 30 September 2025 as compared to $10.8 billion as of 30 June 2025. 

Investment Management Performance for quarter ended 30 September 2025
Overall performance of CLIM strategies continued to be solid, with particular areas of  strength indicated in the table below:

Emerging markets equities as an asset class performed well over the quarter and outperformed the broader global averages. This was led by the Chinese market which returned 20.7% in US dollar terms as measured by the MSCI China Index. CLIM's Emerging Markets ("EM") strategy continued its impressive recent spate of relative returns, outperforming its benchmark significantly over the quarter. The strategy benefited from its country allocation where overweight positioning in Mexico and South Korea, underweight positioning in India and out of benchmark exposure to Vietnam was particularly additive. Similarly, Chinese exposure also aided performance, while the strategy remains broadly neutral in terms of exposure relative to the benchmark, a bias towards smaller cap Chinese exposure and technology sector exposure contributed to outperformance. In South Korea, the government's desire for improving corporate governance albeit at its early stages, continued to benefit our positioning in a number of locally listed holding companies. Finally, the strategy benefited from some discount catalysts during the period as well as ongoing discount volatility. There remains a long pipeline of future corporate events within our universe of securities and we expect the strategy to continue to take advantage of these opportunities, creating sustainable, long-term outperformance which compounds attractively for our clients.

CLIM's Listed Private Equity strategy also produced favorable returns over the period. Most holdings produced at least positive single digit returns. However, returns were particularly enhanced by announcements of corporate events from two holdings, including the strategy's largest holding, which resulted in significant price appreciation and returns for the period in excess of 30% in US dollar terms. The universe continues to offer an attractive investment proposition and we continue to see interest from allocators looking to either manage their overall J-Curve exposure to private equity or as a listed and liquid component to their private markets allocations.

The International Equity strategy posted strong absolute returns during the period, returning just in excess of the benchmark return. Country and sector allocation were positive contributors, notably overweight exposure to China and Emerging Asia and an underweight to Europe ex-UK while a Japanese overweight also helped, particularly from investments that provided exposure to small caps. This was offset by small cap exposure elsewhere, particularly in the UK and Europe ex-UK, which took a breather following gains in the first half of the year. Discount volatility also benefited returns and, as with the Emerging Markets strategy, there remains a significant pipeline of corporate opportunities to take advantage of in coming months and years.

Finally, the Opportunistic Value strategy was a laggard over the quarter on a relative basis but still positive on an absolute basis. While the portfolio remains heavily exposed to event driven, asymmetric return situations, this exposure is biased to alternatives and as a result the portfolio has a lower equity beta versus the benchmark. Given robust equity returns over the period, this hurt relative performance.

KIM's main strategies performed largely in line with benchmarks over the quarter.

Fixed Income Commentary

During the quarter, the 10-year US Treasury yield declined by 8 basis points, while the yield on 10-year AAA municipal bonds fell by 29 basis points. Within fixed income, key performance drivers included municipal bond CEFs, which benefited from strong net asset value (NAV) appreciation and narrowing discounts, as well as preferred securities and senior notes issued by CEFs and business development companies (BDCs). Conversely, pre-acquisition SPACs detracted from performance due to their shorter duration relative to the benchmark. Additional performance tailwinds came from significant tender offers executed near NAV and liquidations of CEFs. While short-term results are important, KIM's long-term performance remains a standout and over the past five years, the Taxable Fixed Income and Tax-Sensitive Fixed Income strategies have outperformed their respective benchmarks by 6.24% and 3.49% annually.

Equity Commentary

US equities posted a strong quarterly return of 8.16%, while international equities gained 6.88%. Equity CEFs modestly underperformed, primarily due to widening discounts and weaker NAV performance.

Flows

The first quarter was marked by client rebalancing, after strong performance by our investment teams and as International and Emerging Markets outperformed US equity markets. EM and International Equity strategies saw net outflows of $197 million and $145 million, respectively. For context, total market & investment performance of EM and International Equity strategies for the quarter was $476 million and $160 million respectively (total $636 million). The Growth and Conservative Balanced strategies (a combination of equity and fixed income) and Taxable Fixed Income saw net outflows of $76 million over this period. Net investment outflows totaled $419 million across the Group during the quarter.

New mandates included $46 million in the Emerging Markets strategy. Inflows of circa $66 million combined across the EM, International and Opportunistic Value strategies, while inflows of $74 million were recorded in the various Balanced and Fixed income strategies.

Persistent discount volatility and strong outperformance of the Group's strategies continue to be the focus of marketing efforts with allocators.

A breakdown FuM by strategy is as follows:

Leadership Update

As previously mentioned, we are focused on broadening our leadership teams and this initiative is advancing well. In his capacity as Chairman, Rian Dartnell is working closely with the Board to evaluate CEO candidates and we have made considerable progress. Further updates will be made in due course.

Dividend

On 16 September 2025 the Company (LSE: CLIG) announced a final dividend for the year ended 30 June 2025 of 22p per share. Subject to approval at the AGM on 27 October 2025, this will be paid on 6 November 2025 to shareholders on the register as at 26 September 2025. This will bring the total dividend for FY 2025 to 33p (FY 2024: 33p).

For further information, please visit https://www.clig.com/ or contact:

Rian Dartnell, Chairman
City of London Investment Group PLC
Tel: 001-203-561-0450

Martin Green, James Hornigold, Louisa Waddell
Zeus Capital Limited
Financial Adviser & Broker
Tel: +44 (0)20 3829 5000

This release includes forward-looking statements, which may differ from actual results.  Any forward-looking statements are based on certain factors and assumptions, which may prove incorrect, and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions relating to future events, the Group's operations, results of operations, growth strategy and liquidity.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
The information contained in this document is intended for infor­mation purposes only. This document does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, nor will any sale of a security occur in any jurisdiction where such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

SOURCE City of London Investment Group PLC