John Gomez, former President of Nuveen affiliate Santa Barbara Asset Management, launched investment boutique Brentview Investment Management in June 2019. James Boothe, who most recently served as CIO at Santa Barbara and was the sole Portfolio Manager for all the firm’s strategies, including the Dividend Growth Strategy that he developed in 2004, joined Brentview as CIO and Portfolio Manager along with Hai Vu, former Director of Research at Santa Barbara.
In the second quarter, our strategy underperformed the S&P 500, our primary index, returning 15.87% vs. 20.54% for the index. Year to date, through June 30th, our strategy underperformed the index by 219 basis points, returning -5.27% vs. -3.08% for the index. Ultimately the second quarter was the best performing quarter for the S&P 500 index since 1998 and the best performing second quarter ever since the S&P 500 index was created in 1957. During this same timeframe, the Non-Payers of the S&P500 clearly outpaced the index and the Dividend Payers cohort as seen in Exhibit 1. The Non-Payers appreciated by 28.38% during the quarter whereas the Dividend Paying cohort appreciated by 18.03%. It’s especially important to note that the dividend paying cohort was broadly helped by recovering energy, retail, leisure, and apparel segments. While some of the companies within this cohort cut their dividends in recent months, they maintained a minimum dividend to remain a dividend payer.
