Almost like old times

[barchid]

Just like a few years ago, but even swifter, Amati open up at 09.00 this morning with a new offer for £7m and by 10.20 it is closed. TBH it was available on Wealthclub over weekend (but not on Amati website until this morning), but could not be submitted till 09.00.
Given their NAV at present it could be a good miss, time will tell !

[BusyBumbleBee]

To be fair ; it's probably the best of a bad bunch and so people went for it. In previous years AMATI have very often had to extend the top up offer as it has gone out of the door so slowly.

Not at all sure that i want to invest in any more VCTs with all the rule changes and dividend cuts (sorry - rebased dividends). They hint at (promise?) lumpier returns - we shall have to see.

[UncleEbenezer]

Surely it's twofold: a small offer, and stellar recent performance.

It's always been the small offers that filled in hours or days. A bigger offer even from Baronsmead's glory days would offer comfortable time to apply.

[Spet0789]

Amati the best VCT on the market by miles in my view.

Low fees (relatively), good investor comms, great performance, diligent management of the discount.

[smose]

I agree Spet. Didn't Amati win Boutique VCT and best specialist VCT of the year in 2020?

[Spet0789]

I agree Spet. Didn't Amati win Boutique VCT and best specialist VCT of the year in 2020?

Categorising them as a specialist VCT is a bit silly in my view. I appreciate they are an AIM VCT but they are (IIRC) the third largest VCT.

[barchid]

Well however they are categorised they have just announced a scaling back of applications for their offer this week.
Can't remember that before in a VCT unless it was Northern years ago ?
Looks to be about a 50% clawback from their email today/

[barchid]

A little more information on this scaling down of applications, it appears that those who applied for £4K will receive them but 5 or 6 figure applications will be receiving between 40 & 50% of their application.
Bear in mind this opened at 09.00 & was closed at 10.10 on the same day it is quite indicative of this years demanded, especially when you see how few offers that are left open, Titan closed today,Apollo was increased for a second time.
We still have almost 5 weeks till end of tax year too.

[UncleEbenezer]

A little more information on this scaling down of applications, it appears that those who applied for £4K will receive them but 5 or 6 figure applications will be receiving between 40 & 50% of their application.
Bear in mind this opened at 09.00 & was closed at 10.10 on the same day it is quite indicative of this years demanded, especially when you see how few offers that are left open, Titan closed today,Apollo was increased for a second time.
We still have almost 5 weeks till end of tax year too.

Titan closed?

Reading that sent me to my feed reader, where I see the announcement[1]. Alongside it, British Smaller, also closed!

Too much money sloshing around.

[1] Damn, just realised, I should've unsubscribed from Titan. It's one of the holdings I disposed of to raise housebuying funds.

[127tolmers]

According to TER almost £450m has been raised this year and another £190m is being sought including over allotments (before Octopus Apollo). There are 10 VCTs that have raised less than 50% of their basic requirement and that are still seeking £110m in this last month.

The budget may have focussed potential new higher rate taxpayers to look at pension alternatives which is becoming LTA limited.

[shootingstar]

Given the quantum of the Amati scaleback it suggests they raised £14m+ in c.1 hour.

Annoying for those that got their applications in early doors that the administrator didn't have a process to stop applications coming in above £7m . I heard that Wealthclub alone submitted c.£5m shortly after 9am

I'm now awaiting money back from the scaling back but a lot of the quality VCT offers have now filled.

[barchid]

Shootingstar
I heard a very similar story re the wealthclub application list but oddly enough I tried applying over that weekend on the Amati site which was not live until 9 on Monday morning but as I later discovered the wealthclub online facility was going all weekend for Amati. So one must question why it was so poorly organised and the result is that 2 weeks later we are still awaiting our reduced allocations and our returned excess subscriptions, plus, as you rightly point out, the best VCT's all now closed.
Not Amati's finest hour, I trust it is not because they are now opening a natural resources fund currently with ongoing webinars ?
"Bite" & "more than they can chew" springs to mind.

[UncleEbenezer]

You've got Old Times there. My mad scramble after the Baronsmead 5 fiasco when they cashed my cheque (which I took to indicate success) before letting me down.

Talking of which, with all the best offers gone that year, I ended up with Octopus Eclipse as substitute. It had recently moved to the same management team as Titan, but with lower charges, so seemed a mildly interesting punt with some potential upside. Then it got merged not into Titan but into Apollo - with Titan's charges but without the investment performance. One of my poorest VCT investments.

[barchid]

Uncle
That must be very old times, wasn't that about 2005ish and they had a fashion company which was sold for silly money ?
I take my hat off to you for remembering what you reinvested the cashed cheque proceeds into.

[UncleEbenezer]

Uncle
That must be very old times, wasn't that about 2005ish and they had a fashion company which was sold for silly money ?
I take my hat off to you for remembering what you reinvested the cashed cheque proceeds into.

Erm, nope. 2015. TMF days.

In 2005 I'd just emerged from poverty, and hadn't heard of VCTs. And I'm not sure which Octopus VCTs existed back then, but certainly not Titan, nor Apollo and Eclipse under those names.

I don't have to remember these things. My spreadsheet records purchases!

[barchid]

Uncle
Interesting point but the first Octopus vct was started in 2002 according to their website, Titan was certainly around 2008 or 9, not sure if it was an entirely new VCT then or a name change from an already existing one.
I do recall that Maven 1, for instance had at least one if not two previous names as they moved management houses into their own company. Indeed vct's have as a group probably gone through more name changes than most, usually down to poor performance of course !

[UncleEbenezer]

Uncle
Interesting point but the first Octopus vct was started in 2002 according to their website, Titan was certainly around 2008 or 9, not sure if it was an entirely new VCT then or a name change from an already existing one.
I do recall that Maven 1, for instance had at least one if not two previous names as they moved management houses into their own company. Indeed vct's have as a group probably gone through more name changes than most, usually down to poor performance of course !

Yeah, Maven 5 (the only Maven I hold) was originally an AIM VCT. Maven, along with Albion and Foresight have taken on quite a few basketcase rescue jobs over the years.

Titan 1 and 2 (of 5 - now merged) was brand new 2008-ish. Titan 3 the following year was one of my first ever VCTs in 2009.

The others were also each a series that got merged, sometime in the first half of the last decade. I don't know the history and whether anything migrated management, but Apollo was one of those that had to change name when government rules precluded potentially-misleading names like "protected" - and achieved adequacy by positioning itself in the "low-risk/reward" space with long-term underperformers like Downing. Eclipse had underperformed quite badly, which is why it was passed over to the more successful Titan team before being sunk into Apollo.

[IJ49]

The Octopus AIM VCTs both came from Close Brothers in 2007/08 (I think), when Andrew Buchanan And Kate Tidbury wanted out and Octopus was chosen. Part of the reason was Richard Power who had also been at Close as part of the Finsbury team.

Octopus Aim 1 was set up in 1995/96 as a Rutherford VCT with Buchanan and Stephen Hazell-Smith, before they sold the business to Close, which they joined and ran the management company for the VCT.

AT Octopus there were a number of mergers of other VCTs into AIM 1 and 2.

I have been an investor in AIM 1 since 2003 and have met Andrew and Kate on many occasions, who were very good and Andrew was a very straight talker.

ij

[barchid]

Anyone who applied for the heavily over subscribed Amati issue should check their bank accounts as I just had 59% of my applicataion cash returned to mine, it arrived today.

[Kidman]

Uncle
Interesting point but the first Octopus vct was started in 2002 according to their website,

I invested in the Eclipse VCT at launch which was April 2004. They followed with Eclipse 2, 3 and 4 and the names were changed to Octopus Eclipse later on. I thought Eclipse (1) was their first VCT so I don't know what they launched in 2002.

After Eclipse I invested in Octopus Protected VCT 1 and 2. They were changed to the Apollo series as the FSA deemed "protected" to be an unacceptable name. A couple of VCTs from other managers also had to change their names.