The board has declared a second quarter dividend for the current financial year of 7.1p per ordinary share, payable on 10 November 2023 to shareholders on the register at close of business on 6 October 2023.
https://www.investegate.co.uk/announcement/rns/merchants-trust--mrch/half-year-report/7777229
Taking the above 2nd quarter dividend into account, the current rolling 12-month MRCH dividend of 28.1p calculates out to a running yield of around 5.2% when set against the current MRCH share price of 541p.
If the current Q1 and Q2 dividend of 7.1p is maintained into Q3 when it's declared next January, then that MRCH yield figure of 5.2% would benefit slightly again, as last years lower Q3 dividend of 6.9p would drop out of the rolling 12-month calculation -
https://www.dividenddata.co.uk/ex-dividend-date-search.py?searchTerm=MRCH
Chart below of Merchant Trust's dividend history for the past 23 years -
Source - https://www.dividenddata.co.uk/dividend-history.py?epic=MRCH
This MRCH half-year report contains the following in it's Outlook statement -
Central banks around the world continue to tread a tentative path around reducing inflation whilst trying to avoid recession. Recession may ultimately be unavoidable depending on how aggressive central banks decide to be. We note however that whilst that scenario can provide a challenge to the financial markets, assets such as the listed shares of companies often start to outperform well before the trough of an economic cycle. Our manager reminds us that any signals that inflation is moderating and that interest rates may fall could lead to investor sentiment improving very rapidly.
Uncertainty such as we have now is the enemy of calm and rational markets and so one might reasonably expect markets to continue to be very sensitive to news flow in the near term. For the dedicated stock picker this continues to provide opportunities where strong companies become caught up in general negativity and become, in the view of our manager, mispriced. He continues to see numerous opportunities to invest in good companies at attractive prices in the UK stock market which is one of the cheapest in the world and is currently trading near a 20-year low whilst its peer - the US equity market - is close to a 20-year high.
Cheers,
Itsallaguess