Re Advance Developing Markets Fund Limited

RNS Number : 8321X

City of London Investment Group PLC

14 February 2013

 



14 February 2013

 

CITY OF LONDON INVESTMENT GROUP PLC

 

Advance Developing Markets Fund Limited

 

City of London Investment Management Company Limited ("City of London") announces its intention to oppose the Continuation Resolution at the forthcoming Annual General Meeting of Advance Developing Markets Fund Limited ("the Company") on 15^th March 2013.

The Company's shareholders are being encouraged to support the continuation of the Company for the next five years when, in four out of the past five calendar years, the Company's NAV has underperformed the MSCI Emerging Markets Net Total Return Index. Cumulatively, over the five years to end December 2012, the NAV performance has been 3.9% (source: Advance Emerging Capital Limited) which compares with the MSCI Emerging Markets Net Total Return of 17.2% (source: Bloomberg) over the same period.

We note that until October 2011 the Manager reported capital only index returns to shareholders. The Board has not referred to this poor relative performance record in its recent letter to shareholders but it has recommended that the continuing appointment of the manager is in the interests of shareholders as a whole.  It is not sufficient, in City of London's opinion, for the Board to make this statement without further explanation. Shareholders deserve a fuller account of the basis on which the Board reached its conclusion and why it expects that the Company's relative returns will be better over the next five years. In City of London's opinion, it is surprising that the Board did not formally review the merits of alternative managers before reaching its conclusion.

City of London currently holds on behalf of its institutional clients 19,826,049 shares (26.27%) in Advance Developing Markets Fund Limited.

 

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For further information, please visit www.citlon.co.uk or contact:

Simon Westlake	Simon Hudson / Kelsey Traynor
City of London Investment Group PLC	Tavistock Communications
Tel: [phone]	Tel: [phone]
[e-mail]

 

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