Cordiant Digital Infrastructure (CORD, 125.5p)
Written by Andrew McHattie, Editor, Investment Trust Newsletter, July 2026
Cordiant Digital Infrastructure (CORD, 125.5p) was one of our ISA selections in March and has been a solid performer to date, with a gain of 19.2%. The trust has announced its full year results for the year ended 31st March, delivering a 16.3% total return for the year. The annualised NAV total return since inception in 2021 is running at 14%, which is an impressive return. The underlying operational performance of the trust’s assets was strong, and there was also NAV growth from the inclusion of the development land value of Prague Gateway, plus the market value of the real estate assets intended to be sold by CRA. The trust made four bolt-on acquisitions during the year, in Ireland, Poland, and the Czech Republic.
Steven Marshall, chairman of the trust described the figures as “another fantastic set of results. We’ve seen revenues grow by just under 10% - 9.9% - and EBITDA grow by just under 8%, 7.8%. As a result of that we have also seen our ex-dividend NAV from a year ago has grown by over 16%, driving our net asset value per share to 146p.” Steven says that the trust’s stakes in its six portfolio companies provide good diversified exposure and plenty of synergies from communications towers, fibre optic cabling, and data centres. He says these companies have predictable growing revenue streams from access contracts with blue-chip customers like Vodafone, T-Mobile, AT&T, Orange, O2, Amazon, Verizon, Pfizer, and Three. Across the portfolio companies, total contracted revenue is £952.1m, and around two-thirds of total revenue is inflation-linked.
CORD’s strategy is a ‘buy, build, and grow’ approach which means it must manage its finances carefully. It has maintained gearing at less than 50% of gross assets, has no debts repayable before 2029, and unlike many infrastructure trusts that overpromised on dividend payments that they later found difficult to support, CORD has always positioned itself to provide a return that is a mix of income and capital growth. The dividend is progressive and has risen every year since IPO, but is well covered 1.7x by cashflow. The managers have a lot of ‘skin in the game’, owning 2.3% of the share capital in aggregate (Steven Marshall has a large holding), and the low management fee of 0.68% of NAV is testament to the good governance here, as the fee is charged on the lower of NAV or market capitalisation. Steven says “despite some good share price growth over the last twelve months we still believe the business is undervalued.”
That said, we did notice a small note of caution in Steven’s outlook. He says that investors might not expect quite the same level of growth in revenue that was achieved last year and mentioned “a little bit of customer churn.” The trust also benefited last year from some significant FX tailwinds that may not recur – stripping out those gains, the NAV total return was 12.3%. On the plus side, one area of focus for investors has been the Prague Gateway development, a 26MW data centre facility that is CORD’s biggest ever development project, being developed by CRA in the Czech Republic. The groundworks are complete now and a general contractor has been selected for the main construction, which may take around two years. Demand is very high from potential clients, such that CRA is trying to contract more power to perhaps expand the capacity to 40MW. Steven spoke of the huge potential in digital markets and is clearly frustrated that the trust is currently unable to raise more capital.
The trust joined the FTSE 250 Index last week and seems to be progressing well. The overall tone of the results was bullish, and we have no reason to change our recommendation. The stockbroker JPMorgan Cazenove has a neutral view, pointing out the portfolio concentration in two large holdings. Their note after the results said “looking at the portfolio as a whole, the largest part of revenue is now fibre, reflecting growth within existing portfolio companies but also the investments in Speed Fibre and DCU. The New York Hudson DC remains a weak spot in the portfolio but is now a small part of the portfolio albeit one where CORD is continuing to invest. The portfolio is better diversified than at IPO but is still largely dominated by Emitel and CRA. We acknowledge that both Emitel and CRA themselves have diversification from a range of business activities across TV and radio/mobile networks/fibre/data centres but it remains the case that the portfolio is concentrated by company and that the performance of both Emitel and CRA is critical to future NAV returns. That can work to the benefit of shareholders if those companies perform well, as has so far happened, but in general we prefer to see more diversified portfolios within infrastructure funds. In particular, we think CORD’s main comparator on the London listed market is 3i Infrastructure (3iN, 377.5p, overweight) which has a far lower level of concentration by portfolio company and a much longer track record of NAV returns in excess of its target rate since inception.”
This article is from Investment Trust Newsletter. To receive our full coverage every month, subscribe now.