Meeting:

Monthly Meeting - April 2004

 

Held at:

The Brocklebank, Crewe

Date:

21st April 2004

 

 

Time:

17:00 – 18:10

Prepared by

Dave G

 

Chairperson:

Adrian T

 

Present:

Adrian T

 

 

Richard W

 

 

Kit P

 

 

Dave G

 

 

Chris B

 

 

 

 

Apologies:

Simon B

 

 

 

Chairman’s Acceptance of Minutes

 


_____________________________________________


____ / _____ / ____

Signature

Date

 

 

 

1           NEXT MEETING

Tuesday 18th May 2004. Venue: The Brocklebank 16:45 – 18:00.

Other future meeting dates agreed:-

Tuesday 15th June
Tuesday 20th July (AGM)
--- August yet to be agreed ----
Tuesday 7th September
Monday 4th October
Tuesday 2nd November

All assumed to start at 16:45 in The Brocklebank unless otherwise stated.

2           Minutes of previous meeting

Accepted.

3           ACTIONS FROM PREVIOUS MEETING

3.1          Actions Closed Since Last Meeting

Ref.

Description & Progress

Status

DG&KP/0716/06

Contact Adrian B about the tape of the Radio Stoke appearance

0820: No progress

0919: DG has just sent mail to Adrian

1022: Adrian B has the tape – he has said that he will pass it on to Chris or Kit (though Dave has given him his home address so he could post it there)

1121: No progress – Dave to remind Adrian

1219: Kit thinks that Adrian may have given the tape to him – he will check

0123: Kit to contact Adrian B

0227: Kit does have the tape.  Just needs passing to Dave G

0323: No further progress

0421: Kit handed tape to Dave G.  See follow-up action DG/0421/01

COMPLETE

DG/0323/01

Send out proposed dates of meetings for rest of year

0421: Incorporated into section 1 of the minutes

COMPLETE

RW/0323/03

Incorporate Simon’s weightings into the overall weightings then apply them and make the first purchase for the second mechanical portfolio

COMPLETE

DG/0323/04

Check whether we entered the Barclay’s competition for best performing club

0421: We did enter, but too late to qualify for the ‘year’ prize.

COMPLETE

3.2          Actions Carried forward to Next Meeting                         

See end of these minutes.

4           Treasurer’s Report

4.1          Monthly Report Summary

See separate report for detail. 

Highlights/Lowlights  Unit value down from 463.641 to 461.384.  Having allocated £6,500 to the second mechanical portfolio, we have £3,433.39 of non-mechanical cash.

4.2          Matters Arising From Report

Chris highlighted that CB/0716/02 from July 2003 had been closed when the accounts had been submitted for audit, but no ‘child’ action had been raised to track the audit itself.  A new action was therefore raised on Adrian to complete the audit of last year’s accounts.

Two minor mis-statements of valuation had been identified on selling the Mothercare shares (we’d actually held 975 shares rather than the previously stated 973).  Chris has corrected the errors (both were approx £10 so have negligible impact on the overall unit value of the club).  The meeting agreed that the historic valuations should be left as previously stated.

Contract note for the Horizon purchase actually showed that the stamp duty was not rounded to £15 but set at £10.55 instead thus making the Horizon purchase slightly cheaper than originally thought.   One action arising out of this discussion was for Chris to check the tiered charge rates from our broker so that net asset value formulae can be adjusted as appropriate.

5           PORTFOlio Management

5.1          Monthly Money Management Checks

The proportion of assets in common UK stock is in the “Too Low” category (58% against strategic minimum of 75%).   Fundamental portfolio was also “Too low” (15% against strategic minimum of 25%).

Purchase proposals for the Fundamental portfolio would address these so are encouraged.

5.2          Mechanical Portfolio

In updating the Strategy to incorporate the “growth” mechanical portfolio, Dave had suggested that the Exit Criteria agreed for that portfolio (of selling after 12 months unless a target price had been reached and a trailing stop loss not yet triggered) be applied to the “value” side of the mechanical portfolio too.  An immediate discussion on this issue was necessary as the next “value” holding that was due to be sold was Crest Nicholson which, co-incidentally, was in exactly this situation.

The meeting agreed that the “growth” Exit Criteria should indeed apply across the whole mechanical portfolio. 

Following on from this decision, a futher decision needed to be reached on when to ‘fill the gap’ in the portfolio if and when the stop-loss threshold is eventually breached.   The possibility of Crest Nicholson falling by 10% tomorrow was used to illustrate this. 

The meeting agreed that the ‘gap’ should be filled at the next Club meeting.  

The possibility of a mechanical holding being sold via this stop loss method and also being the top candidate to purchase next time was considered.   In these circumstances we could incur unnecessary dealing costs by selling only to buy it back at the next meeting.  The likelihood of this was considered remote but, if this possible scenario could be anticipated (e.g. by the holding being in the candidate list at the Club meeting prior to the sale) then a tactical decision could be taken at the time.

5.2.1          “Value” Mechanical sub-portfolio

As a result of the above discussion, Crest Nicholson will NOT be sold despite it having reached its anniversary (indeed, this means that it is in fact the second time that it has avoided being sold on its anniversary….it being the top candidate for selection on its anniversary last year). 

The table below now reflects the sell situation for each “value” mechanical holding.  The appropriate sell condition is shown in bold

Company

“Anniversary”

Purchase Price

Target Price

Trailing Stop Loss

High Since Purchase

Target Met?

Sell If Below

Crest Nicholson

Already passed (Apr 2004)

215.50

323.25

32.33

361.25

Yes

328.93

TDG

Jun 2004

199.00

298.50

29.85

228.00

No

298.50

European Motor Hdgs

Aug 2004

172.78

259.17

25.92

210.00

No

259.17

Severfield-Rowen

Oct 2004

323.88

485.82

48.58

410.00

No

485.82

Countryside Properties

Dec 2004

196.70

295.05

29.51

279.00

No

295.05

Wagon

Feb 2005

198.00

297.00

29.70

198.50

No

297.00

 

The ‘loser’ as a result of the above decisions is Fyffes which was the top candidate for purchase this month and would have replaced Crest Nicholson had that been sold.

5.2.2          “Growth” Mechanical sub-portfolio

Horizon was purchased last month.  No ‘growth’ trade due this month.

The table below now reflects the sell situation for each “growth” mechanical holding.  The appropriate sell condition is shown in bold

Company

“Anniversary”

Purchase Price

Target Price

Trailing Stop Loss

High Since Purchase

Target Met?

Sell If Below

Horizon

Mar 2005

66.50

99.75

9.98

64.50

No

99.75

 

5.3          Monthly Reports For Each Company in Fundamental Portfolio

CodaSciSys

HOLD – Review in May 2004 (see table in 5.5 below)

ISG

HOLD – Not yet met sell criteria (see table in 5.5 below).  As Mothercare had been sold during the month, Dave undertook to produce the ISG monthly report for future months.

WH Smith

SELL to take advantage of the bid approach.   Meeting unanimously agreed to action the sell.

 

5.4          Speculative Portfolio

Parity

HOLD – not worth selling

Atlantic Caspian

HOLD (especially as it’s delisted !!)

Templeton Emerging

HOLD – not worth selling but look to sell if opportunity arises as the warrants expire in September 2004

Cape

HOLD – Not yet met sell criteria (see table in 5.5 below)

5.5          Stop Loss / Sell Criteria (as of date of treasurer’s report)

The following is the summary of sell criteria for each stock held within the Speculative or Fundamental portfolios (the Mechanical holdings are dealt with as part of section 5.2 above).  The stop loss is invoked against the “end of day” price, but the sell decision may wait for the opening price to avoid rogue trades at the end of day.

Stock

Reportee

“High” Price

Stop Loss (based on the “high”)

Exit Criteria

CSY

Richard

420

210p