Canadian General Investments

[Dod101]

I came across this investment company in Simon Thompson's article in the current IC and am inclined to maybe take a small holding in it. It has a good spread of Canadian investments and a few US ones and is standing at a big discount to NAV for much the same reason as our own Caledonia Investments; it has a big private shareholder.

It holds the usual suspects, some Canadian banks, Brookfield Asset Management, CPR and so on. It is quoted in London as well as Toronto, although he notes that the London quote has a wide spread. London though would be my preference as I do not want to incur exchange charges every time I receive a dividend.

Has anyone got any thoughts on this outfit?

Dod

[everhopeful]

I had not come across this one. It certainly seems to beat its benchmark on a consistent basis. It is not able to buy in shares to control the discount because of its tax status in Canada and it has a high annual charge at 1.68%. I am also not sure what the influence of its issue of redeemable prefs might have and it seems to be thinly traded in London. I would be interested if others have anything to contribute. I presume Simon Thompson's article suggested buying it but I have not seen it.

[Urbandreamer]

I presume Simon Thompson's article suggested buying it but I have not seen it.

Simon Thompson writes a regular article in the IC about "bargin shares", by which I think he means small companies that presumably are overlooked by large investors. This article was using a Bejamin Graham aproch. I confess that I was more interested in his tip of Vietnam Holdings, but that is because I have been thinking of investing in them for over a year. I'm still making my mind up.

Sorry Dod. While I recognised some of the companies mentioned, I had not heared of CGI before.

[Dod101]

The article in question is not Simon Thompson's usual tips of small companies but what he calls Bargain Shares for 2021. As has been said, he tries to apply Benjamin Graham's investment ideas where essentially companies are underpriced, based on their fundamentals. Of course they can be underpriced for long enough. I like the spread of investments in CGI but the large shareholder can be a negative. However even if the discount does not close I would be happy holding it anyway subject to any other negatives anyone may produce..

I know noting about the Vietnam fund and had it not been for Covid, I might well have been there and other parts of Indo China at the moment. I always like to get my feet on the ground in that sort of situation.

Dod

[Urbandreamer]

I know noting about the Vietnam fund and had it not been for Covid, I might well have been there and other parts of Indo China at the moment. I always like to get my feet on the ground in that sort of situation.

Dod

Enjoy your trip to Canada once Covid's out of the way then.

[Dod101]

I know noting about the Vietnam fund and had it not been for Covid, I might well have been there and other parts of Indo China at the moment. I always like to get my feet on the ground in that sort of situation.

Dod

Enjoy your trip to Canada once Covid's out of the way then.

Actually it is in my plans not for investment reasons by I have a lot of relatives there whom I would like to see. Whether it will happen this summer though I rather doubt.

Dod

[Itsallaguess]

I came across this investment company in Simon Thompson's article in the current IC and am inclined to maybe take a small holding in it.

It has a good spread of Canadian investments and a few US ones and is standing at a big discount to NAV for much the same reason as our own Caledonia Investments; it has a big private shareholder.

It holds the usual suspects, some Canadian banks, Brookfield Asset Management, CPR and so on. It is quoted in London as well as Toronto, although he notes that the London quote has a wide spread. London though would be my preference as I do not want to incur exchange charges every time I receive a dividend.

Has anyone got any thoughts on this outfit?

I'm not sure how well known this little trick is, but the IC articles can be read without any issues if they are individually accessed via a Google Search (similar to the same Financial Times article trick..), and so using the link below will return the above article (Bargain Shares for 2021) as the first hit if anyone's wanting to have a read -

https://www.google.com/search?&q=Simon+Thompson+investors+chronicle+canadian

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Lootman]

I had not come across this one. It certainly seems to beat its benchmark on a consistent basis. It is not able to buy in shares to control the discount because of its tax status in Canada and it has a high annual charge at 1.68%. I am also not sure what the influence of its issue of redeemable prefs might have and it seems to be thinly traded in London. I would be interested if others have anything to contribute. I presume Simon Thompson's article suggested buying it but I have not seen it.

This reference has the annual expense ratio as 2.31%:

https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/CGI:CN

I recall looking at it years ago as I was also struck by the large discount to NAV. The fact that it is still at a similar discount now might indicate that it should not be bought in the expectation of that discount narrowing.

Also note that, unlike UK investment trusts, the North American equivalents (called closed-ended funds) are not companies. They are classified and taxed as mutual funds. This limits the opportunities for arbitrage such as another institution buying up the assets at a large discount.

Finally be wary of holding this in a taxable account as it will distribute realised capital gains on an annual basis.

[billG]

Andrew Mchattie (who runs an Investment trust tip sheet) was a guest at an Investment Trust round up for 2020 hosted on/by quotedata

https://quoteddata.com/research/quotedd ... 0-roundup/

He spoke literally 1 or 2 sentences about this trust and if memory serves me correctly said it was interesting (whatever that means), reasonable performance history but always trades on a wide discount. You buy it as a dividend play. i.e. because of the wide discount you would effectively have an enhanced yield. Check it out, if interested, because I may have misremembered....

I guess you need to factor that in with respect to the relatively high fees. If you believe the commodity super cycle is about to kick off then Canadian stock have a relatively high proportion of mining stocks.......but there may be better ways to leverage that view.

BillG

[Dod101]

Thanks for all the comments. I am not at all sure that I should expect the discount to narrow and am not bothered whether it does or not.. I plan to hold it in an ISA via the London quote and for its holdings which I quite like. Three Canadian banks, Brookfield Asset Management , the Canadian railways and so on plus a few US tech stocks. All good stuff for me.

The income side of it does not bother me very much anyway; I see this as primarily a long term growth proposition.

Good replacement for Glaxo which I will probably implement tomorrow (or today I suppose)

Dod

[richfool]

I note it holds 3 Canadian banks. The spread between buying and selling price is quite marked at 2120p v 2160p.

Bits I've pulled out from the KID: Risk factor 5. Transaction costs 0.04%. Other ongoing costs: 2.20%.

I hold MCT. (Middlefield Canadian Trust).

[88V8]

I hold MCT. (Middlefield Canadian Trust).

I also, quite a recent addition.

They seem to run at a discount, but I hold them for income and they have no cover so I hesitate to add.

V8