The Lemon Fool

GoSeigen wrote:Here's the list in no particular order but the five largest positions by current value are marked with an asterisk, each approx 9-11% of the total.

*Artemis US Select Class I (Acc)
ES AllianceBernstein Sustainable US Equity Fund I (Acc) Fidelity Emerging Markets Class W (Acc)
Fundsmith Equity Fund Class I (Acc)
GCP Infrastructure Investments Ltd (GCP)
HICL Infrastructure Company (HICL)
*JPMorgan Global Bond Opportunities C (Acc)
*LF Brook Continental European P I (Acc)
Liontrust UK Smaller Companies I (Acc)
*M&G Emerging Markets Bond Class I (Acc)
*Royal London Sustainable Leaders C (Acc)
SVM UK Opportunities Institutional Class B (Acc)

terminal7 wrote:I have to say GS my heart sunk for you when I read:

She had the ear of people in her church who steered her to the current outfit

A very close (religious) friend (just retired) was inveigled into a blatant Ponzi scheme by one of the 'elders' in her church (community based), who had been receiving wonderful guaranteed returns from his investment. My friend initially received some decent returns on her initial deposits. She then (under persuasion) mortgaged her home and invested the lot into the scheme. I pleaded with her not to and basically the friendship broke down. She ended up having to return to work and renting a small place. The whole community lost a shedload of money.

T7

GoSeigen wrote:
Here's the list in no particular order but the five largest positions by current value are marked with an asterisk, each approx 9-11% of the total.
*Artemis US Select Class I (Acc)
*JPMorgan Global Bond Opportunities C (Acc)
*LF Brook Continental European P I (Acc)
*M&G Emerging Markets Bond Class I (Acc)
*Royal London Sustainable Leaders C (Acc)
The platform seems to be something called Transact, which I also am not familiar with.
GS

scotia wrote:I know nothing about a platform named Transact

mc2fool wrote:

GoSeigen wrote:Here's the list in no particular order but the five largest positions by current value are marked with an asterisk, each approx 9-11% of the total.

*Artemis US Select Class I (Acc)
ES AllianceBernstein Sustainable US Equity Fund I (Acc) Fidelity Emerging Markets Class W (Acc)
Fundsmith Equity Fund Class I (Acc)
GCP Infrastructure Investments Ltd (GCP)
HICL Infrastructure Company (HICL)
*JPMorgan Global Bond Opportunities C (Acc)
*LF Brook Continental European P I (Acc)
Liontrust UK Smaller Companies I (Acc)
*M&G Emerging Markets Bond Class I (Acc)
*Royal London Sustainable Leaders C (Acc)
SVM UK Opportunities Institutional Class B (Acc)

Well (shock!) look at that!

scotia wrote:The Total returns of the 5 largest (plus a Vanguard Developed World Tracker ETF for reference) are shown below

Nocton wrote:Just for my clarification, GoSeigen, when you say II do you mean ii, i.e. Interactive Investor?

GoSeigen wrote:

mc2fool wrote:Well (shock!) look at that!

That's a but cryptic for me but I assume you mean the portfolio performance is no surprise given the performance of the highlighted components?

Dod101 wrote:From what GS has said, given his mother’s attitude, there is not much he can do about it. I am surprised that he seems to have all the details of his mother’s new investments. Clearly they remain in touch which in itself is a good thing but in my opinion if he pays too much attention he is going to become increasingly frustrated. If his mother is determined to plough an independent path he might as well leave her to it.

Lootman wrote:

Dod101 wrote:From what GS has said, given his mother’s attitude, there is not much he can do about it. I am surprised that he seems to have all the details of his mother’s new investments. Clearly they remain in touch which in itself is a good thing but in my opinion if he pays too much attention he is going to become increasingly frustrated. If his mother is determined to plough an independent path he might as well leave her to it.

True, although if GS perceives this nest-egg as his inheritance then he might be right to be concerned to see it being eroded.

After my dad died I managed my mother's money for her. Initially through advice and later by taking over the funds directly or using my POA. I ensured that she always had enough, although people of a certain vintage tend not to want to spend a lot anyway - I told her to take a world cruise but she just saw that as too extravagant.

So in the end I was really managing (what I perceived to be) my own money.

mc2fool wrote:No, the surprise is that those two are ITs! The rest are OEICs/UTs.

Alaric wrote:

mc2fool wrote:No, the surprise is that those two are ITs! The rest are OEICs/UTs.

There are areas of possible investment, infrastructure being an example, where the open ended nature of OEICs and for that matter ETFs doesn't work very well. Hence the use of ITs.

Alaric wrote:

mc2fool wrote:No, the surprise is that those two are ITs! The rest are OEICs/UTs.

There are areas of possible investment, infrastructure being an example, where the open ended nature of OEICs and for that matter ETFs doesn't work very well. Hence the use of ITs.

scotia wrote:I'm not au fait with such ITs, but both of them have NAVs which are fairly constant over the past year, and both started with a discount near zero, but the discount has plunged to around -17% (HICL) and -39% (GCP) - with the consequent fall in market price. So I'm curious - can anyone suggest why?

mc2fool wrote: An even more obvious example is directly held property, and in times of turmoil we've seen open ended direct property funds stopping redemptions for long periods. My surprise isn't that ITs are better suited for such assets, but that an IFA would go there!

Alaric wrote:

mc2fool wrote: An even more obvious example is directly held property, and in times of turmoil we've seen open ended direct property funds stopping redemptions for long periods. My surprise isn't that ITs are better suited for such assets, but that an IFA would go there!

There aren't any property funds or REITs in the portfolio. Perhaps IFAs are feeling bitten by the suspension of redemptions in the open ended funds. That wouldn't rule out REITs, but perhaps the major ones like British Land, Land Securities or SEGRO are rather more property trading and development outfits, rather than just holders of property.

mc2fool wrote:

Alaric wrote:There aren't any property funds or REITs in the portfolio. Perhaps IFAs are feeling bitten by the suspension of redemptions in the open ended funds. That wouldn't rule out REITs, but perhaps the major ones like British Land, Land Securities or SEGRO are rather more property trading and development outfits, rather than just holders of property.

Yes, I did notice the lack of property in the portfolio, my comment was a general one rather than specific to that portfolio. I suppose if the IFA wanted to include any property they could have done so with some of the direct property ITs ... but that would have added to the IFAs-doing-ITs surprise.

mc2fool wrote:

GoSeigen wrote:That's a but cryptic for me but I assume you mean the portfolio performance is no surprise given the performance of the highlighted components?

No, the surprise is that those two are ITs! The rest are OEICs/UTs.

(Actually HICL is a UK domiciled investment trust whereas GCP is a Jersey domiciled investment company, but that's a distinction without any real difference...)

GoSeigen wrote:I wonder why it was considered a good idea to have 20% of the assets in UK infrastructure investment trusts last year? With hindsight it might not have been the greatest move, but I'm wondering if I was missing something about the infrastructure space? Was that a popular trade at the time?

EDIT: also five out of twelve holdings suffered more than 20% drawdown in the two year holding period. Is that usual for a medium risk portfolio?