Meeting:

Monthly Meeting & AGM - July 2006

 

Held at:

Square One then The Empire, Crewe

Date:

26th July 2006

 

 

Time:

17:30 – 20:20

Prepared by

Dave G

 

Chairperson:

Adrian T

 

Present:

Adrian T

Chris B

Dave G

Kit P

Richard W

Simon B

 

 

 

 

 

Apologies:

none

 

 

Chairman’s Acceptance of Minutes

 


_____________________________________________


____ / _____ / ____

Signature

Date

 

 

 

1           NEXT MEETING

To be arranged – will be during August Bank Holiday week.

2           Minutes of previous meeting

Accepted.

3           ACTIONS FROM PREVIOUS MEETING

3.1          Actions Closed Since Last Meeting

Ref.

Description & Progress

Status

CB/1128/01

CB to produce audit pack

1219: No progress

0117: No progress

0215: No Progress

0314: No Progress

0427: No Progress

0523: No Progress – is this still needed??

0621: No progress

COMPLETE

RW/0621/02

Purchase £2500 of QINETIQ

COMPLETE

CB/0621/03

Provide details of Ceres Power cash burn rate

COMPLETE

SB/0621/04

Produce a buy proposal for Ascribe

COMPLETE

ALL/0621/05

Consider venues for the AGM

COMPLETE

3.2          Actions Carried forward to Next Meeting                         

See end of these minutes.

4           Chairman’s Report

Not done – Kit to produce one ahead of the next meeting.

5           Treasurer’s Report

5.1          Monthly Report Summary

See separate report for detail. 

Highlights/Lowlights:  Another poor month with holdings down 2.1% on the month which represents just over £1k.  This was primarily due to us agreeing to treat the suspended BetOnSports as being at zero value (which is likely to be the valuation when the suspension is over!!).  The rest of the portfolio rose by approx £1k which was actually slightly ahead of the FTSE which was up 1.7% on the month.  It was probably our most active month ever with 5 purchases and 2 sales.

Unit value down from 677.786 to 655.607.  We have £1,213 available as non-mechanical cash with an additional £8,371.99 in cash alternative investment trusts.  

5.2          Matters Arising From Report

None.

5.3          Annual Report

Chris had distributed the annual accounts ahead of the meeting.

It had been another good year with net assets up approximately £13k against subscriptions of less than £8k.   Just considering the income from investments on the year, we had gained approximately £8k on an asset base at the start of the year of just under £38k which is another pretty good result.

5.4          Auditer’s Report

Due to the combination of Chris’s ability to get the accounts out a few days ahead of the meeting, and Richard’s dedication to progressing the audit in these few days, we had the luxury of also having the auditer’s report at the meeting.   The audit found that the accounts were a true and fair state of the affairs of the club.

A general point raised in the audit report was how the accounts may appear to an auditer that may not be familiar with the detailed working of the club, should we ever need or wish to have the accounts audited externally.   To quote directly from the report:-

“Providing detailed transactional records (e.g. double entry bookkeeping) would address this issue. It would, however, put a considerable extra burden on the Hon. Treasurer and may require the purchase of an accounts package to enable it to be performed efficiently. I am not convinced that the extra effort involved is currently worthwhile but as the club’s assets increase it may become so. Alternatively, every such detail could be recorded in the notes to the accounts but this could again mean significant extra effort.”

Three actions arose from the discussion of this issue.  Firstly, Richard agreed to produce an example of what the annual report might need to look like if we were to submit the accounts for external audit.  Secondly, Simon agreed to investigate possible use of OpenSource software packages to help the Treasurer.  Thirdly, Chris agreed to maintain a running list of items that could be incorporated into the annual report – maintaining a running list being a bit easier than creating the list from scratch at the time of having to produce the annual report.

A further discussion took place on whether or not dividends that had not yet been paid but which had gone XD before our year end should be included as assets of the club in the year end report.  It was agreed that ideally they should be and that we should adopt this approach for next year’s annual accounts.

6           PORTFOlio Management

6.1          Monthly Money Management Checks

Fundamental portfolio is still showing as “too low” with 14% held in this portfolio against strategic minimum of 25%.

The Fundamental portfolio is also too concentrated with only 3 holdings in it, the issue being that two of these three exceed the strategic maximum weighting of 30% in any one stock within this portfolio.

6.2          Mechanical Portfolio

The portfolio was significantly down this month, by 4% against a 2% rise in the market as a whole. This was due to the suspension of BetOnSports following the arrest of their CEO and the closing of the majority of their business.

It was noted that if BetOnSports does indeed prove to be near worthless when it comes out of suspension, it will be the second disaster in the growth selections to date (Advanced Fluid Connections being the other at -79%).  Despite these, the average return on growth selections is still 33% so they have been very profitable but at much higher risk – which is pretty much what we expected.

No trades scheduled for this month.  We continue to run with a vacancy in the Value side but there are no candidates coming up yet.

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

Charter

Growth

Aug-06

326.26

489.39

48.94

860.50

Yes

811.56

McAlpine (Alfred)

Value

Oct-06

347.97

521.96

52.20

499.75

No

521.96

Metnor Group

Growth

Nov-06

219.83

329.75

32.97

260.00

No

329.75

First Choice Holidays

Value

Jan-07

233.99

350.99

35.10

249.75

No

350.99

Interior Services Group

Value

Feb-07

259.70

389.55

38.96

302.50

No

389.55

BETonSPORTS

Growth

Mar-07

159.44

239.16

23.92

171.00

No

239.16

Stanley Leisure

Growth

Mar-07

781.00

1171.50

117.15

781.00

No

1171.50

Character Group

Growth

May 07

59.50

89.25