The Investment Management Association has created a Global Equity Income Sector which will come into effect from 1 January.

In July 2011 the IMA conducted a review of funds in existing IMA sectors that take income from non-UK equity. The review exposed the need for a Global Equity Income Sector and consultation with our members confirmed this. The sector will accommodate funds that place at least 80% of their assets in global equity.
The IMA is also exploring the possibility of creating a European Equity Income sector but at the present there are insufficient European Equity Income Funds to populate this sector. A potential European Equity Income sector will be reviewed once the universe of potentially eligible funds increases.

The Global Equity Income Definition is that funds must invest at least 80% of their assets globally in equities. Funds must be diversified by geographical region and intend to achieve a historic yield on the distributable income in excess of 110% of the MSCI World Index yield at the fund's year end.

The IMA says in addition that:
1.     Funds must be diversified by geographic region.
2.     Funds which qualify for the Global Emerging Markets equity sector but also have an income bias will be excluded
3.     To ensure compliance with the sector criteria, funds should supply data for monitoring to enable the calculation of historic yield based on the IMA guidelines set out in "Yield Calculation and Disclosure by UK Authorised Funds - Guidelines for Managers September 2007".
4.     Funds are required to submit yield data at the fund's year end to the sector team at IMA, and at the mid-year when notified by IMA. They should also supply the information to the monitoring company, Morningstar.
5.     To ensure compliance with the intended 110% yield, funds in the sector will be tested over 3 year rolling periods by taking a simple average of the yield figure achieved for each fund at its year end.  Funds that fail to meet the 110% average yield for each 3 year rolling period will be removed from the sector. (As an illustration, this would require a fund that delivered 90% in the first year and 100% in the second year to deliver a yield of 140% in the third year, if it were to be allowed to remain in the sector.)
6.     Annually, at the fund's year-end, each fund in the sector must achieve a yield of not less than 90% of the MSCI World Index yield.  Funds that fail to do so will be removed from the sector.
7.     IMA will measure yield to one decimal place.
8.     IMA will consider adjusting the yield parameters of the sector up or down to account for extraordinary market factors when a request is made by funds in the sector representing either 50% by number or 80% by value.
9.     To assist users of the sectors and aid comparison, IMA will publish the annual yield achieved by each fund in the sector.