Aberforth Smaller Compan... Share Discussion Threads

[spectoacc] 11/11/2020 07:32

Signs? It's been enormous!

"Based on historical data, the book-to-market enjoyed a 12x standard deviation rally, while price momentum and short-term growth factors suffered from 20x and 25x sigma sell-offs, respectively, on November 9."

(In US).

[aurelius5] 10/11/2020 19:38

Are there signs of an incipient rotation to value?

[andycapp1] 10/11/2020 07:40

Agree. It’s my biggest holding and they’ve had a few big winners like Urban and Civic. Be interesting to see today’s NAV.

[king_baller] 09/11/2020 14:37

Big shift into small cap value going on with today’s vaccine news / sentiment. If, as is likely, there is Brexit progress in the near turn there could be a quick 30 percent bounce in ASL. Good opportunity to buy in at a particularly large discount, which I’ve taken.

[panshanger1] 12/10/2020 12:31

I've held on here too rather than crystallise loss Management team have very large holdings which has also been a factor - at least they share the pain !Stock selection has been poor though, a positive out come to Brexit negotiations should help GLA

[biggest bill] 04/8/2020 08:32

Mw8156, I have started buying shares here. The reasons? I think that value investing will start outperforming the growth style from now on. Small uk companies shares and value shares have been hammered recently. I was looking for an investment trust which has a good long term record, invests in small uk value shares and is currently at a bigger than normal discount. Aberforth smaller companies fits the bill precisely. As a bonus, liquidity here is pretty good and the bid/offer spread is small.

[mw8156] 03/8/2020 23:01

well to give the chairman his due he has replied:
seems that they geared up the portfolio following the election in December in the expectation of a rally in British companies after any political worries of Corbyn had been removed. This seems fair enough even though it turned out to be the wrong option.
then they invested in a succession of duds, First group, rps, sig, ipf, urban and civic which were not offset by successes with CMC, Huntsworth, Dialight-results today>
Gulf marine and low and bonar.

mentioned the dividend reserve allowed a maintenance of the progressive dividend policy- doesn't greatly matter to me a 30 yr shareholder in the ISA would have preferred greater concentration or index tracking in utilities and capital preservation in retrospect.

Great turnover in stock in the portfolio over 30% a year suggests a lack of conviction in their holdings or ?poor quality stocks that continually need weeding out?

My general conclusion- danger that the trust will become a Temple Bar or 'MandG Recovery' type fund invested in many value traps that appear to have a good dividend yield but no moat.

Other conclusion is that yet to receive any apology from anyone at Aberforth...the extent of their reflection is that they are 'disappointed'--so am I!

[topvest] 03/8/2020 21:31

If you look at the long-term record its very strong. I am keeping the faith. Aberforth have a patient and well tested approach.

[mw8156] 03/8/2020 14:52

so, the chairman gave his email address in the results statement to allow and encourage ordinary shareholders to contact which I did seeking a fuller explanation for their performance beyond 'value investing being out of favour' with the idea that it might be time to consider a change of manager, to divulge the full list of their holdings and give a performance attribution via the rationale for choosing so many losing stocks and detailing their individual contribution to this performance. I await the reply, not holding my breath!

[mw8156] 29/7/2020 10:09

ghastly statement truly abysmal results.

[shiv1986] 26/2/2019 09:30

See the latest ADVFN twitter poll about Funds:

[traderjeff7] 20/11/2018 14:13

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[topvest] 02/3/2017 20:40

Yes - excellent support and a strong vote of approval for a well run trust.

[commiesy] 02/3/2017 15:18

I assume the continuation vote was passed successfully given that all resolutions in the AGM were passed?

[topvest] 06/2/2017 21:23

A vote "for" continuing as an investment trust or "against" to be wound up. Its at the AGM.

[commiesy] 06/2/2017 18:48

Thanks for the colour, topvest. Could you please explain what a 'continuation vote' is?

[topvest] 05/2/2017 14:52

This is an excellent trust in my view. It's nothing like the two micro trusts mentioned in the last post. It's a small-mid cap value trust. Trades at a 20 per cent discount but has been good for a 13-14 per cent / annum return since inception. I prefer to invest in smaller companies than their benchmark in the main, but this company is an excellent way of winning in the small company space over time with an extremely disciplined approach.

Continuation vote is being voted on soon, but should get passed in my view. I'm also interested in adding to my holding in the geared income trust that should be rolled over into a new vehicle in the summer. The managers are not interested in growing AUM outside of their core area or even in it, just on achieving the good sort of returns historically delivered. Great investment over the long-term.

[geeff] 26/2/2015 15:53

Have to say I think this has been an excellent investment trust and happy with my original 3000 shares + warrants bought in Nov 1990 for £3015 now worth £33000.(have many more since the initial investment) I can only thank Brewin Dolphin (Bell Lawrie Edinburgh in those days) for their good advice.I am sure there were even better investments around but I wasn`t told about them and with limited funds you can`t buy them all!

[envirovision] 18/2/2015 22:16

I rather suspect if you had reinvested dividends on both that would most certainly not be true.

[topvest] 18/2/2015 20:38

This has performed much much better than SDV over time. Hold both, but without a shadow of a doubt this is much better in my view. SDV is an income stock at the expense of capital growth (certainly over a longer term horizon) whereas this delivers both over time - normally 14/15% per annum total return over a long time horizon. Not bad given Warren Buffet is on 20%.

[envirovision] 18/2/2015 16:35

Charges at .85% seem fair, dividend is poor though. Much prefer SDV, thks for thread though.

[topvest] 07/2/2015 16:31

I thought that I would start a thread on this trust. I do think that this is a really good investment trust with a disciplined value driven approach. It's delivered a total return of 14% per annum over 25 years and is on a reasonable discount and dividend yield. Never seems to get much interest, but I think it's the best run small company investment trust in the UK. Anyone else have any views?