The Lemon Fool

Albion Devt up 7% today and Albion tech up 3%. This follows sharp rises in Enterprise in the summer from 92p in July to 107p now. No announcements or obvious explanations.

Does anyone have insight?

Vulgaris wrote:Albion Devt up 7% today and Albion tech up 3%. This follows sharp rises in Enterprise in the summer from 92p in July to 107p now. No announcements or obvious explanations.

Does anyone have insight?

Have a look at the Crown results posted late last night see https://www.investegate.co.uk/crown-pla ... LC%20Alert

If there are any common shareholdigs that may explain it.

As it is CRWN's year end they were the last of these to report Jun NAV so I don't see anything obvious that would indicate an uplift in Development or Enterprise. Only Post Balance Sheet Events are new acquisitions - no disposals. I have only skim read though so may have missed something.

Albion seems to be doing well - their oldest VCT (AAVC) published results this morning. see:

https://uk.advfn.com/stock-market/londo ... t/78841850

Quite good : NAV up and some events after the report date augur well.

And of course the other VCTs in the stable have similar core investments

According to Bestinvest, who may or may not be accurate, they say that Albion are looking for £60m this raise, so spread over 6 funds that is £10m a fund which tend to have assets of +/- £60m each, thus the cash to be raised is about 16% a fund on average.
Quite a lot given the new restrictions emphasising early stage & Intellectual Property areas, which are very different to Albion's established strengths in renewable energy & asset backed care homes & schools.Most VCT AGM's I attended this year had managers saying that times will be a bit tougher and some said dividends would be less reliable & more dependent on sales, it would be interesting to know what they intend to invest this £60m in ?

Indeed.

AAVC in particular has a good number of asset backed investments throwing off cash. Why do they need to raise more only to funnel it into more Tech companies?

I like Albion, however most of their funds are now co-investing in the same companies, and most of the new companies are tech. Albeit in different industries.

Another jump in Enterprise today, up 7p, with no explanation.

I'm increasingly thinking that Albion may be the best stable under the new rules.

Vulgaris wrote:Another jump in Enterprise today, up 7p, with no explanation.

I'm increasingly thinking that Albion may be the best stable under the new rules.

Yes I noticed this too. Let's await an RNS and see if the NAV is increased before Allotment of new shares which would mean that existing holders are less diluted. If it is one holding that has caused this, it is likely that others in the stable will benefit as well.

have a look at the CRWN AGM thread for more comments

To be fair it appears to be a single purchase of 1740 shares at 114p which has caused this jump. As they do still appear to be offered at 114p, which is still a small discount to their estimated NAV (XD) of 115.96p by morningstar it is probably not the harbinger of some unexpectedly good news, though as a holder I confess to say that I wish it were !
I do agree with you though that Albion seem very well suited to play the vct game under the new rules, their record is pretty impressive.

barchid wrote:To be fair it appears to be a single purchase of 1740 shares at 114p which has caused this jump.

but that purchase took place one hour after Vulgaris reported the jump in price.

BBB, a very good point, but could it be a late reported trade ?
They do happen and it is still the only trade showing on the day, the stock is also still offered at 114p, nevertheless I would be delighted if this is a precursor of a nice surprise in the NAV

In December Onslow said

AAVC in particular has a good number of asset backed investments throwing off cash.

They have just released their respectable quarterly figures

"The Company's unaudited net asset value (NAV) as at 31 December 2018 was
GBP68.6 million or 80.2 pence per share (excluding treasury shares), an
increase of 2.1 pence per share (2.7 per cent.) since 30 September 2018.
The total return per share for the nine months to 31 December 2018 was
6.6 pence per share (8.7 per cent.).
After accounting for the dividend paid of 2.5 pence per share on 31
January 2019 to shareholders on the register on 11 January 2019, the NAV
is 77.7 pence per share. "

Care homes : 40% of assets
Other Asset backed investments within top ten = 28%

So max of about 30% in cash and other investments

Hope they hang on to most or (at least some) of the asset backed ones for as long as possible for the income!

BusyBumbleBee wrote:They have just released their respectable quarterly figures
"[i]The Company's unaudited net asset value (NAV) as at 31 December 2018 was
GBP68.6 million or 80.2 pence per share (excluding treasury shares), an
increase of 2.1 pence per share (2.7 per cent.) since 30 September 2018.

Impressive, considering the substantial fall in markets over that period.
Baronsmead have also issued quarterly updates for the same period, but with substantially different results.
Baronsmead Venture Trust - Net Asset Value Total Return = a decrease of 10% Most of the decrease was due to the quoted portfolio which declined by 16.2% (http://www.baronsmeadvcts.co.uk/download.asp?id=414&v=2)
Baronsmead Second Venture Trust Net Asset Value Total Return = a decrease of 11.9% Again, most of the decrease was due to the quoted portfolio which declined by 19.2% (http://www.baronsmeadvcts.co.uk/download.asp?id=415&v=3)
I suspect there has been a partial recovery during the first few months of 2019. And I believe that other AIM based VCTs have also experienced declines. But it does show that Albion Shares have done well (and I don't hold any).

scotia wrote:Impressive, considering the substantial fall in markets over that period ... Baronsmead have also issued quarterly updates for the same period, but with substantially different results ... Baronsmead Venture Trust - Net Asset Value Total Return = a decrease of 10% Most of the decrease was due to the quoted portfolio which declined by 16.2% ... I believe that other AIM based VCTs have also experienced declines.

I have been meaning to reply for ages to point out that AIM index (AXX) had an incredible two year period up to Sept/Oct 2018 rising from 900 to 1100. Since then it has declined to 850 (ish) but recovered to 900 (ish) at the moment. That is an 18% drop so most of the AIM oriented VCTs have done rather better than the index. AMATI - which had an incredible two years has lost all of its gains dropping neary 25% - so Baronsmead haven't done too badly I hold Amati. - kind regards - BBB

I wonder if the AIM index might be particularly attuned to group-think amongst Financial Advisors? Whether in a market less dominated by big fund managers than the FTSE but having various tax advantages, IHT clients might tend to swing the index?

UncleEbenezer wrote:I wonder if the AIM index might be particularly attuned to group-think amongst Financial Advisors? Whether in a market less dominated by big fund managers than the FTSE but having various tax advantages, IHT clients might tend to swing the index?

It could be, UncleE: but AIM is very asymmetric - also there are a lot of stocks that don't qualify for IHT relief and/or are suitable for VCTs

It is worth looking at https://www.londonstockexchange.com/sta ... im/aim.htm for detailed info which you can get by opening one of the spreadsheets on the page

912 companies listed :top 20 make up 32% of index : those with market cap more than £100 million (about a third of the index) make up 81%. ASOS, for example, was worth £12 million when it floated and is is now about £2.7 billion.

Albion Dev't served up good results yesterday see : https://www.investegate.co.uk/albion-de ... 3400H4224/

Headlines :
a) dividend up by 12.5 % (but note they cut it be 20% last year!)
b) NAV up : from 73.8 to 84.7 pence per share (note current SP = 76 bid 77 offer and they buy back at 5% discount so at rather more than 80 pence)
c) The Total return to shareholders for the year increased by 20.3 per cent (on opening net asset value) This is really the key figure to compare one VCT with another in my view.
d) Cash and Cash equivalents comprise £9.189 million out of total Assets of £64.223 million i.e. under 10%

This is the Albion VCT that is mostly invested in companies akin to what the new rules require, and indicates to me that Albion really know what they are doing as we move forward under the new regime.

Another interesting point is that the report shows the C shares and D shares issued when VCT houses didn't just steal money from existing shareholders to give to the new ones did remarkably well - much better than the ORDs first issued in January 1999.

They mention 'tax benefits' but do not make a song and dance about it as some other VCT houses do.

I assume that the new shares yet to be issued at the year end will be at the higher NAV which could make new invstrs somewhat unhappy.

I said

b) NAV up : from 73.8 to 84.7 pence per share (note current SP = 76 bid 77 offer and they buy back at 5% discount so at rather more than 80 pence)

in my earlier post : they have just done a buy back and the price has risen to 79.5 bid/81.50 offer - which is a 5% (ish) increase in the SP. [AAVC has also gone up by 2% (ish)]

Looked at the prospectus : the first allotment occurs on 1st April for this year's offers.

Kings Arms Yard results just out too: another respectable performance from the Albion stable. Dividend unchanged (from last year, which was 20% up on earlier years). NAV up. Total return +11% on opening NAV per share.

https://www.investegate.co.uk/article.a ... 43215H4239

Is it me or are the valuations for these nursing homes pretty punchy?