RM Infrastructure Income (RMII ) has repaid two loans as it tries to get its balance sheet in order ahead of a shareholder vote on a wind-down.

The £84m high-yielding debt fund proposed a wind-down after merger talks with £1.8bn infrastructure lender GCP Infrastructure Investments (GCP ) were abandoned in September. RMII shareholders will be asked to vote on the fate of the investment company next month.

Fund manager James Robson has been busy putting the fund’s finances in order and the company says there will be ‘no new investments – save for drawdowns against committed facility – unless the board considers that doing so will maximise returns to shareholders in the time frame in which the company will otherwise be dealing with the managed wind down’.

Any free cash is currently being used to repay outstanding debt, with the revolving credit facility (RCF) repaid with a £2.2m payment and the term loan reduced by a £1m repayment.

Following the end of September, a further £35.8m was paid on the term loan, which now has an outstanding balance of £5.2m but the board is anticipating it will be fully repaid by the end of the year.

The RMII board said shareholders had been ‘overwhelmingly supportive’ of management and performance, which has seen the net asset value (NAV) total return over 12 months grow 4.74% and the trust deliver 41.5% since inception in 2016.

The NAV total return, which includes dividend payments, was up 0.39% in September, although the underlying portfolio value was down 1.27p per share due to the company paying its 1.625p quarterly dividend. Over the quarter, the NAV was up 0.52%.

The biggest impact on returns in the third quarter has been fixed income, especially sovereign bonds.

‘The higher-for-longer rhetoric from central banks from both sides of the Atlantic, has translated into a steepening of the UK yield curve at the tail end as well as a tightening of the yield curve inversion at the front of the curve,’ said Robson.

‘Although on track to continue its downward trajectory, UK inflation remains high with the labour market showing signs of resiliency. We remain cautious regarding duration risk and have positioned the portfolio accordingly.’

Robson added that credit spreads will ‘continue their decompression journey, in line with what we have seen in the sovereign yield space’.