Blackrock UK Income

increased dividends every year since inception

This UK equity income fund, managed by Nick McLeod-Clarke, aims to provide an above-average and growing income without sacrificing the benefits of long-term capital growth. The manager uses a “barbell” approach, combines higher yielding stable income stocks with lower yielding growth ideas to provide a balanced overall portfolio that will be actively managed to take advantage of prevailing market conditions.

Since Mcleod-Clarke took over management in Feb 2007 performance has been excellent, providing top decile performance over the past 1, 2 and 3 years. The fund has one of the best dividend records in the sector: it is the only fund that has managed to increase its dividend every year since inception, successfully avoiding many of the dividend traps that resulted in many other funds cutting payments during 2009. The current dividend yield is around 3.9%.