Meeting:

Monthly Meeting  - September 2005

 

Held at:

The Brocklebank, Crewe

Date:

21st September 2005

 

 

Time:

17:00 – 18:10

Prepared by

Dave G

 

Chairperson:

Dave G

 

Present:

Adrian T

 

 

Richard W

 

 

Dave G

 

 

Kit P

 

 

Simon B

 

 

Apologies:

Chris B (except for telephone conversation for item 5.6)

 

 

Chairman’s Acceptance of Minutes

 


_____________________________________________


____ / _____ / ____

Signature

Date

 

 

 

1           NEXT MEETING

Proposed dates for future meeting are as below.  Each to be confirmed at the preceding meeting:-

            Monday 17th October

            Monday 21st November

            Monday 19th December 

2           Minutes of previous meeting

Accepted.

3           ACTIONS FROM PREVIOUS MEETING

3.1          Actions Closed Since Last Meeting

Ref.

Description & Progress

Status

CB/0516/01

See whether we can set up a deposit account with Bank of Scotland linked to our normal account. 

0620: Yes we can.  Application forms are being sent to Chris B

0718: Forms were signed during the meeting.  Chris to post off the bank

0810: Forms are with the bank for processing

0921: Deposit account is now set up.  Now need to transfer funds into it from the current account (see action CB/0921/01)

COMPLETE

ALL/0718/12

On completion of DG/0718/11 each select a couple of potential Investment Trusts to progress through to buy proposal stage with the aim of sending them out for review before the next meeting.

0810: Dave has completed a proposal for WITAN but wanted to complete another on Scottish Mortgage and also wanted a couple of others to be investigated by others if possible so that we could have a ‘shortlist’ to choose between.  See also section 5.1 of these minutes.

0921: Chris submitted Alliance Trust.  Action considered complete but also see section 5.6 of these minutes

COMPLETE

CB/0810/01

Sell Jarvis.

COMPLETE

CB/0810/03

Check the Sportingbet price and sell if it closed on 10th August below 363.14p, purchasing Charter as replacement if Sportingbet is to be sold.

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:  A very active month with a takeover, two disposals, one rights issue and one purchase.  A good month’s performance also with our holdings up £797 on the month.  Unit value up from 597.911 to 610.556.  We have £6076.15 of non-mechanical cash.

4.2          Matters Arising From Report

Now that the deposit account has been set up with the Bank of Scotland, the £4000 (approximate) that we’ve got in the current account can be moved across so that it begins to earn us a bit more interest.  Chris to progress this (once he gets his password sorted out!).

5           PORTFOlio Management

5.1          Monthly Money Management Checks

Fundamental portfolio is showing as “too low” at 21% of total assets which is below the strategic minimum of 25%.

We now only have one holding, Egg, in the Speculative portfolio and this only represents 2% of net assets but, as the strategic thresholds are 0%-25%, this is not actually “too low”. 

Fundamental and Speculative proposals are still encouraged.

5.2          Mechanical Portfolio

This is a month for the ‘Growth’ side of the portfolio with Hyder Consulting being the candidate for sale.  However, like Sportingbet in July, and McAlpine in August, Hyder has risen beyond the target price and isn’t currently below it stop loss trigger so is now to be held until it breaches 209p.   The top candidate for purchase would have been Metnor Group had Hyder not been retained.

The table below now reflects the sell situation for each mechanical holding.  The appropriate sell condition (i.e. “Anniversary” or “Sell If Below”) is shown in bold.

Company

Portfolio

“Anniversary”

Purchase Price

Target Price

Trailing Stop Loss

High Since Purchase

Target Met?

Sell If Below

McAlpine

Value

Aug-05

254.70

382.05

38.21

387.75

Yes

349.55

Hyder

Growth

Sep-05

150.00

225.00

22.50

231.50

Yes

209.00

Lambert Howarth

Value

Oct-05

272.00

408.00

40.80

363.00

No

408.00

Advanced Fluid Connectors

Growth

Nov-05

24.65

36.98

3.70

30.75

No

36.98

Taylor Woodrow

Value

Nov-05

242.39

363.59

36.36

347.25

No

363.59

Bellway

Value

Dec-05

724.40

1086.60

108.66

894.00

No

1086.60

Hunting

Growth

Jan-06

184.75

277.13

27.71

323.50

Yes

295.79

Wagon

Value

Feb-06

182.85

274.28

27.43

199.50

No

274.28

Carclo

Growth

Mar-06

67.50

101.25

10.13

88.50

No