The Lemon Fool

I have been to the FRCL AGM today, held appropriately at The Brewery. As it was their 150th anniversary, they pushed the boat out a bit. The food was different, curry in a box for me, preceded by a salmon salad and a carrot and something cake with iec cream to finish. The wine flowed well. It was better than the usual standing in a strategic place to waylay a waiter at Merchant Taylors Hall.

A good account by Paul NIven. They voted to change the name to F&C Investment Trust.

No surprises.

TJH

Hi Terry,

All my shareholdings are held through Selftrade and HL via ISAs and a SIPP. I don't have paper certificates just the virtual variety. Am I correct that this means I wouldn't be able to attend an AGM as a shareholder?

Funny how "wine flowing freely" got my attention.

BD

Pretty much all of my holdings are through nominee accounts and, if I've wanted to attend an AGM, I've contacted the company and they've said "no problem". I've never tried voting though. Most AGM votes seem to go through on an ex-Soviet Union election majority from shareholders who had already registered a proxy vote

That's right. Your platform can arrange for you to attend AGMs if you wish. In my case I hold the shares in ITs in designated accounts on behalf of my grandchildren, so I am on the register.

Back before PEPs and ISAs, all my shares were held directly, but since they went inside the tax shelter I've never bothered to attend AGMs of companies.

TJH

I was also at the AGM - better food than usual but not quite so classy as Merchant Taylor Hall in my opinion.

The fund manager, Paul Niven, gave a thoughtful and measured presentation as usual. His standing among shareholders was also enhanced when he replied to a question regarding the number of FRCL shares he personally owned - 135k (about £850k). The new director, Beatrice Holland, had to admit that she did not own any shares at present but would be buying some in the coming year.

I can thoroughly recommend this AGM - the directors are approachable and friendly, and it feels more like a member's club than a stuffy company meeting. The performance of FRCL speaks for itself - total returns averaging 9% per annum over 20 years.

Many thanks for the AGM update, FRCL is a core holding for me although I am slightly concerned that this anniversary year may be impacting negatively on the discount.

I was also at the AGM. Very interesting and a particularly interesting presentation by the fund manager (Paul Niven). The presentation is now on the web site as a pdf and is well worth a read.

The discount is now at its lowest for 10 years.

For a second year the revenue per share exceeded the dividend (for some considerable time this had not been the case.

Dividend up 5.6% on last year (1-May-18).

Best wishes,

Steve

Cross post from the passive investing board:-

Completely off topic and not meant in any way to confuse or influence the O.P., but merely in comment on loosecannon101's post 134548 above, Foreign & Colonial was also my introduction to collective investing.

At a time when buying shares (including FRCL) through a stockbroker cost anywhere north of 1.5%, the standard initial charge on buying unit trusts (now known as O.E.I.C.S.) was 5% and in the pre-internet age when index funds were just something that I had only read about in Burton Malkiel's "A Random Walk Down Wall Street", F&C's introduction of the first truly low cost share purchase scheme was a breath of fresh air and pre-empted the move to low cost investing in this country.

My F&C shares have long since been transferred into a low cost ISA and there they remain. But now every time hiriskpaul posts one of his erudite and persuasive essays my conviction is temporarily challenged, my finger momentarily hovers over the sell button, but some how I can't commit to killing off the old dog. The robots would not approve.

p.s. Peter Spiller of Capital Gearing Trust (CGT), historically the arch exponent of trading discounted investment trusts and who can claim to defeat the indexes, still seems to find room for FRCL in his portfolio. I await next months CGT annual report to see exactly where.

http://www.capitalgearingtrust.com/~/me ... 202018.pdf

LittleDorrit wrote:....Foreign & Colonial was also my introduction to collective investing......

My F&C shares have long since been transferred into a low cost ISA and there they remain. But now every time hiriskpaul posts one of his erudite and persuasive essays my conviction is temporarily challenged, my finger momentarily hovers over the sell button, but some how I can't commit to killing off the old dog....

Like you, FRCL was my first collective investment - some 24 years ago - and I still hold, albeit after some top-slicing.

Any time you feel seduced by someone else's essays, just have a look at the recent share price performance.

Up by about 75% over the past 5 years. Even given the modest yield, this compares favourably with the FT100 (about 15%). The FT250 is, as usual, better (about 40%).

Works for me, as one component of my holdings. No guarantees for the future of course, but I am not thinking of selling.

DAK the trusts top ten holdings please ?

jackdaww wrote:DAK the trusts top ten holdings please ?

From HL (in holding size order)...

Amazon
Microsoft
United Health Group
Anthem Inc
Facebook
Utilico Emerging Markets Trust
Booking Holdings
JP Morgan Chase
Intesa Sanpaolo
Alphabet

Cheers, OLTB.

Being a fan of the history within IT's, it is sad to see the name change although inevitable, perhaps next will be British Empire?

Starting with the last post first, many ITs have changed their name over the years so it is no surprise. At least they have not called themselves Digalot or something equally meaningless like quite a few other companies.

Secondly in my experience, IT Directors are a friendly lot and I guess the reason is that they normally have little to worry about. Most ITs plod along quite comfortably and in any case if something does go wrong they can blame it on the portfolio manager. They mostly have no pesky employees nor too much responsibility.

As has been said, one can attend an AGM, with voting rights and so on even if your shares are held in an ISA or SIPP but you need to get accreditation from the ISA or SIPP manager. That often gives rise to a fee. OTOH, most IT company secretaries are usually perfectly happy for you to come along as a guest (and I would think as a shareholder or not) but of course you will not then be allowed to vote. You will though get all the info and may or may not be allowed to ask a question. Almost certainly you will be able to participate in any lunch which may follow.

Dod

Last week's issue of The Economist had an article on F&C and its history, titled "A Victorian survivor in fund management".

Amongst the many anecdotes, F&C turns out to have had a connection with Agatha Christie and it is still getting royalties from the musical "Cats" which it acquired in the 1970s.

They mention an annual management fee of 0.37% and a compounded return over 150 years of 8.1% per annum.

https://www.economist.com/news/business ... n-survivor

jackdaww wrote:DAK the trusts top ten holdings please ?

See http://www.fandc.com/foreign-and-coloni ... uTnWZch3cs and the link on that page to the complete list of holdings, updated monthly, I believe.

TJH