Meeting:

Monthly Meeting - March 2007

 

Held at:

The Brocklebank, Crewe

Date:

15th March 2007

 

 

Time:

16:55 – 17:50

Prepared by

Richard W

 

Chairperson:

Adriant T

 

Present:

Adrian T

Kit P

Richard W

Simon B

 

 

 

 

 

Apologies:

Chris B, Dave G

 

 

Chairman’s Acceptance of Minutes

 


_____________________________________________


____ / _____ / ____

Signature

Date

 

 

 

1           NEXT MEETING

To be decided by email.

2           Minutes of previous meeting

Accepted.

3           ACTIONS FROM PREVIOUS MEETING

3.1          Actions Closed Since Last Meeting

Ref.

Description & Progress

Status

DG/0116/07

Submit entry to Proshare for the annual awards

0215: Not done but will do so by deadline day of 16th Feb.

0315: Entry submitted but not shortlisted for any awards – a complete travesty!

COMPLETE

DG/0116/08

Contact Proshare about possibility of keeping an eye on (or even negotiating) rates at banks and brokers for investment clubs

0215: Not specifically progressed but there is a move by Mourad of the Mobius Club and others (via the Proshare message board) to establish a Steering Committee to help investment clubs, as Proshare no longer appear to be motivated to offer anything to clubs.  Dave to keep in touch with Mourad for progress and contribute where necessary.

0315: Closed as no specific action required

COMPLETE

RW/0215/03

Sell ISG and buy Royal Dutch Shell, ScS Upholstery and Renold

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. 

Report prepared by Richard as Hon Treasurer is currently away on business. As a result some information not available but nothing that would have a material effect on the unit value.

Highlights/Lowlights:  A small loss which comfortable outperformed the larger market loss. Thanks to the additional subscriptions the club assets set a new high.

Unit value down from 846.810 to 843.087.

We have £4.5k available as non-mechanical cash with an additional £9.2k in cash alternative investment trusts. 

Overall club assets stand at £70,786 with profits of £35,692.  Overall return on investment is 101.70% and the annualised rate of return since the club started in May 1998 is 27.13% (compared with an annualised rise in the FTSE of 7.53% over the same period).   In the 94 rolling 12-month periods since comparisons could begin, the Club has outperformed the FTSE in 78 of these, which is 82.9%.

4.2          Matters Arising From Report

Current status of the Abbey current account application is not known. Once it is open Chris will need to arrange for the direct debits with Barclays Stockbrokers to be transferred and inform members of new account details to allow them to amend their subscription standing orders.

5           PORTFOlio Management

5.1          Monthly Money Management Checks

As usual, the Fundamental portfolio is still showing as “too low” with 11.9% held in this portfolio against strategic minimum of 25%.

The Fundamental portfolio is also too concentrated with still 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.

More fundamental buy proposals are encouraged.

5.2          Mechanical Portfolio

The portfolio suffered a 1% fall during the month but it was still an out performance with the market falling by 2%.

The main movers were Lookers (+7%), John David (+6%), Character Group (+5%), Cable & Wireless (-5%) and Oxford Instruments (-10%). In addition, McAlpine fell by 17% before it was sold.

During the month, McAlpine fell below its stop loss level and was sold. As a result we once again have a vacancy in the value side.

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

Annivers-ary date

Purchase Price

Target Price

Trailing Stop Loss

High

Target Met?

Sell If Below

Metnor Group

Nov-06

219.83

329.75

32.97

427.50

Yes

394.53

Character Group

May-07

59.50

89.25

8.93

156.50

Yes

147.58

Ashley (Laura)

May-07

22.50

33.75

3.38

29.25

No

33.75

Cable & Wireless

Jun-07

110.39

165.59

16.56

179.50

Yes

162.94

John David Group

Jun-07

254.49

381.74

38.17

422.75

Yes

384.58

Jacques Vert

Aug-07

18.00

27.00

2.70

23.75

No

27.00

Lookers

Nov-07

167.72

251.58

25.16

198.50

No

251.58

Oxford Instruments

Jan-08

273.73

410.60

41.06

285.50

No

410.60

Royal Dutch Shell B

Feb-08

1702.53

2553.80

255.38

1707.00

No

2553.80

ScS Upholstery

Feb-08

422.90

634.35

63.44

437.50

No

634.35

Renold

Feb-08

131.96

197.94

19.79

138.50

No

197.94

 

There are no valid candidates to fill the vacancy on the value side. 5 companies pass the newly relaxed filters agreed upon last month. Royal Dutch Shell is one of these (which we bought last month) and the other 5 all fall outside the top 50 in the unfiltered list. We had agreed to the top 50 stipulation last month but Richard suggested that perhaps it would make sense to relax or even scrap it for the new relaxed filters (whilst keeping it for the other relaxations). The general feeling at the meeting was that it should be OK to scrap it altogether and Dave had already voted for this by email. Adrian put forward a counter suggestion to relax the requirement to it being in the top 10% of companies in the unfiltered list on the basis that this was a significant relaxation (the top 10% currently equates to 212 companies) and that it reduced the risk of buying a weak candidate. This suggestion was agreed upon.

Dave to update the strategy with the change to the top 10% of companies (included in existing action DG/0215/04.

As a result of adopting this change, the housebuilder, George Wimpey becomes eligible for purchase. Richard to purchase it.

5.3          Monthly Reports For Each Company in Fundamental Portfolio

Coda

HOLD – Not yet met sell criteria (see table in 5.6 below).

SciSys

HOLD – Not yet met sell criteria (see table in 5.6 below).

Raymarine

HOLD – Not yet met sell criteria (see table in 5.6<