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"Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 9th, 2018, 5:23 pm
by Aminatidi
Curious because of a thread that mentioned it, what do people think of the "old money" trusts as a place to park some money for a long-term buy and hold?
For example:
Brunner
Caledonia
RIT
PNL (share price is an issue here with any kind of drip)
Witan
I guess I'm curious why the Rothschild's don't just buy a tracker
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 9th, 2018, 7:11 pm
by mc2fool
Aminatidi wrote:I guess I'm curious why the Rothschild's don't just buy a tracker
http://mediacharting.digitallook.com/cg ... dicator_3=
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 9th, 2018, 7:48 pm
by PinkDalek
If of interest, some of those you name are discussed over at
Investment Trusts and Unit Trusts:
viewforum.php?f=54
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 9th, 2018, 7:59 pm
by monabri
Aminatidi wrote:I guess I'm curious why the Rothschild's don't just buy a tracker
And where would be the commission in that for financial advice?
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 10th, 2018, 11:43 am
by Backache
Aminatidi wrote:I guess I'm curious why the Rothschild's don't just buy a tracker
I would guess there are several reasons why the Rothschilds haven't just bought a tracker. Firstly low cost trackers tracking the world just did not exist when RIT started up.
Secondly a lot of their investments have not been in publicly listed companies thus not included in indices.
Thirdly and possibly related as pointed out above they have considerably outperformed the indices thus why would they want to use a tracker.
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 11th, 2018, 6:32 pm
by colin
Seems it depends on the dates chosen and the benchmark which one compares performance to
http://tools.morningstar.co.uk/uk/cefreport/default.aspx?tab=1&SecurityToken=E0GBR00BUS%5D2%5D0%5DFCGBR%24%24ALL&Id=E0GBR00BUS&ClientFund=0&CurrencyId=GBPThey should have put their money in an all world tracker, well over the last ten years at least.
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 11th, 2018, 6:42 pm
by Aminatidi
Thanks all, the tracker comment was a bit tongue in cheek
Contemplating a bit of play money into:
Witan
Brunner
CGT (PNL is just too expensive)
Caledonia
RIT
Split equally, won't shoot the lights out but interested in long term and from how I understand things to be right now the traditional bond allocation doesn't seem quite as guaranteed as it used to.
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 11th, 2018, 7:31 pm
by Dod101
I hold Caledonia and RIT from your list. Not sure why Personal Assets is considered to be too expensive as it always trades at or very close to NAV per their proclaimed policy. IT does not do a lot though. RIT is often at a premium and Caledonia at a discount.
BTW RIT is not run by 'the Rothschilds'. It is run by one Rothschild, to wit Lord Jacob Rothschild and his daughter. It has a lot of unquoted stuff that I could not easily access by myself and it is a decent performer.
Aminatidi's choice looks good to me
Dod
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 11th, 2018, 7:35 pm
by Aminatidi
Dod101 wrote:I hold Caledonia and RIT from your list. Not sure why Personal Assets is considered to be too expensive as it always trades at or very close to NAV per their proclaimed policy. IT does not do a lot though. RIT is often at a premium and Caledonia at a discount.
BTW RIT is not run by 'the Rothschilds'. It is run by one Rothschild, to wit Lord Jacob Rothschild and his daughter. It has a lot of unquoted stuff that I could not easily access by myself and it is a decent performer.
Aminatadi's choice looks good to me
Dod
Expensive simply in so much as @ £400 means it's hard to do a monthly regular savings etc.
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 11th, 2018, 10:16 pm
by Dod101
Aminatidi wrote:Expensive simply in so much as @ £400 means it's hard to do a monthly regular savings etc.
There are many definitions of the word 'expensive' but I see what you mean. I used to hold this Trust but got fed up of it doing nothing (and it has not done much since) In January 2015 it was £360 and I sold in September 2015 at £338 so you are not missing much. There are far better trusts than Personal Assets, and it is not an 'Old Money' trust anyway.
Dod
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 11th, 2018, 11:47 pm
by dspp
Dod101 wrote:BTW RIT is not run by 'the Rothschilds'. It is run by one Rothschild, to wit Lord Jacob Rothschild and his daughter. It has a lot of unquoted stuff that I could not easily access by myself and it is a decent performer.
Dod
Dod, From some comments a TMF regular made I suspect they hung out on TMF to shoot the breeze from time to time. There can't be that many people in the City teaching their daughter how to set up algo-trading with a smidge of family money on the kitchen table. I haven't clocked whether they equally hang out on TLF. yet. regards, dspp
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 12th, 2018, 3:18 am
by Pendrainllwyn
Of these I own Caledonia. If you are adventurous there are some interesting "Old Money" companies listed on European exchanges that are effectively investment holding vehicles trading at substantial discounts to their underlying investments. Like Caledonia, they typically hold some combination of listed and unlisted equities and funds. Their equity holdings are typically few but often very large, large enough to have seats on company boards. These companies often claim to use their "old money" networks and board representation to help their investments (particularly unlisted) grow through acquisition. A few I am aware of.
Exor (Italy), Agnelli family (Primary quote in Euro)
Selected holdings: 100% of PartnerRe, 63.8% of Juventus, 43.4% of The Economist, 28.9% of FiatChrysler (FCA), 22.9% of Ferrari.
Investor AB (Sweden), Wallenberg family (Primary quote in Swedish Krona)
Selected holdings: 30.0% of SAAB, 20.8% of SEB, 15.5% of Electrolux, 11.6% of Nasdaq, 7.2% of Ericsson, 4.2% of AstraZeneca.
Pargesa (Switzerland), Desmarais family (Primary quote in Swiss Francs)
Selected holdings: 9.4% LafargeHolcim, 7.5% Pernod Ricard, 7.5% adidas
Wendel (France), Wendel family (primary quote in Euro)
Selected holdings: 40.7% of Bureau Veritas, 2.6% of Saint-Gobain. Wendel has large unlisted investments in Africa.
All four are owned by British Empire Trust which I own but I don't think finds much favour with Lemon Fool investors. I also own Exor and Wendel directly. Investor AB is very interesting but I don't want dividends in Swedish Krona.
Pendrainllwyn
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 12th, 2018, 6:21 am
by Dod101
British Empire did me well over some years in the 1990's then it seemed to lose its way a bit and I sold it not that long ago. It tries to identify companies selling at a substantial discount to underlying assets and then sell as and when the assets increase in value. It used to favour, and apparently still does, big European holding companies.
It was never exclusively European in its investments though. I may take another look because I like something a bit different.
I like Caledonia because if it underperforms for too long, some of the wider Cayzer family can be relied upon to stir things up a bit. It is primarily their money after all and we 'public' holders are simply piggy backing, just as we are with RIT, but that of course is the point.
Dod
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 12th, 2018, 8:12 am
by Aminatidi
Thank you all, some good information.
"Old money" was perhaps a bit of a misleading title, but with current events and only having been doing this for six months I'm considering a few strategies and possibly a couple of pots.
It didn't seem the worse idea to look at some steady options that have been and are likely to be around for a long time and perhaps favour stability (as much as you can in this day and age) over trying to shoot the lights out.
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 12th, 2018, 8:57 am
by Dod101
Dod101 wrote:British Empire did me well over some years in the 1990's then it seemed to lose its way a bit and I sold it not that long ago. It tries to identify companies selling at a substantial discount to underlying assets and then sell as and when the assets increase in value. It used to favour, and apparently still does, big European holding companies.
It was never exclusively European in its investments though. I may take another look because I like something a bit different.
I like Caledonia because if it underperforms for too long, some of the wider Cayzer family can be relied upon to stir things up a bit. It is primarily their money after all and we 'public' holders are simply piggy backing, just as we are with RIT, but that of course is the point.
Dod
On the second line of this post, I should have said sell 'when the discount reduces'. It is misleading to say when the assets increase in value. That may happen, but their strategy is to buy on a big discount, engage with the management and hope to close the discount, then sell.
Sorry about that.
Dod
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 12th, 2018, 5:18 pm
by Aminatidi
British Empire looks interesting.
That said if I go this route I don't want to be that person who turns up with 27 assorted investment trusts in 3 years time.
I'm trying to keep it fairly simple hence 4-5 IT's and an even split so I don't have to try to think too much.
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 12th, 2018, 7:04 pm
by doug2500
Gadge wrote:
A more growth oriented investor could do worse than stick half his money in PNL and half in Scottish Mortgage and rebalance annually, in my view.
This would give a very simple to manage portfolio which I think would probably do quite well in any market condition.
Gadge
Wouldn't do it myself but I love the idea.
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 12th, 2018, 7:05 pm
by Pendrainllwyn
Aminatidi wrote:I'm trying to keep it fairly simple hence 4-5 IT's and an even split so I don't have to try to think too much.
I have, for me, a large position in British Empire Trust but I am at the stamp collecting end of the spectrum. If I were only going to have 4 or 5 IT's and that was the bulk of my equity investment I wouldn't select British Empire.
Pendrainllwyn
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 12th, 2018, 7:10 pm
by Aminatidi
doug2500 wrote:Gadge wrote:
A more growth oriented investor could do worse than stick half his money in PNL and half in Scottish Mortgage and rebalance annually, in my view.
This would give a very simple to manage portfolio which I think would probably do quite well in any market condition.
Gadge
Wouldn't do it myself but I love the idea.
I wouldn't have the balls frankly. Way too wild of a ride whatever the long term direction.
Re: "Old Money" Trusts?
Posted: October 13th, 2018, 12:11 pm
by Julian
Backache wrote:Aminatidi wrote:I guess I'm curious why the Rothschild's don't just buy a tracker
I would guess there are several reasons why the Rothschilds haven't just bought a tracker. Firstly low cost trackers tracking the world just did not exist when RIT started up.
Secondly a lot of their investments have not been in publicly listed companies thus not included in indices.
Thirdly and possibly related as pointed out above they have considerably outperformed the indices thus why would they want to use a tracker.
I really like RIT and wish I'd bought more. I've never quite been able to reconcile their categorisation as a wealth preservation trust along with stuff like Personal Assets, Ruffer and Capital Gearing though when RIT has a reasonable amount of unlisted stuff which to me seems pretty racy. My problem/short-sightedness/misunderstanding I guess but it certainly hasn't stopped me being an enthusiastic investor in RIT.
As an anecdote, a very long-time friend of mine (now US based) has worked all his career in the pharmaceutical industry and is now pretty senior. He has spent a lot of his later career either selecting and managing in-house VC investments or helping smaller or mid sized companies raise VC funding. He has had a lot of contact with VC funds and other investment teams wanting to participate in fundraising rounds. He often complained to me how pretty much every investment outfit that he has dealt with knew pretty much nothing about the pharma industry. I once mentioned that I held RIT who had some investments in unlisted pharma and his face lit up. Apparently they are one of the few outfits that actually fielded people with impressive knowledge of the industry when he was either pitching to them or joint-funding with them.
- Julian