Abrdn Diversified Income... Share Discussion Threads

[rich1952] 23/3/2021 15:43:57

No buy backs for a few days. Have the clowns running this outfit used up all the available capital?

[cc2014] 22/3/2021 13:36:30

If you guys want to sell and drive down the share price, I'm happy to pick up your shares

Edit: Sorry that's a bit harsh and I guess I'd be pretty fed up if I'd been sitting in this trade for years. However, what we all have to decide is whether the trade is worth holding onto or we are better off moving on. I guess as you guys are still here, somewhere you view the current fund manager as doing an acceptable job

I dunno really. It looks cheap to me. I'm not sure how much of that is to do with the Morningstar rating. I'm for in a comfortable amount now and whilst I would not object to it going to 90p to buy some more, if I find myself topping up all the way down to 85p I'm going to shaking my head as well and questioning my decision process.

[tiltonboy] 22/3/2021 11:58:53

Token and futile come to mind, and I've told them!

[essentialinvestor] 22/3/2021 11:27:09

Rich, raised the same point previously.


Wonder where the % discount would be once buy backs stop?.

[rich1952] 22/3/2021 10:21:40

I still can't my head around how they can constantly buy back shares in a hopeless attempt to close the discount gap. Surely there has to be a limit to the cash available to do this. I really wish they would wind this trust up. I can't see the point of it anymore. I bought when it was British Assets Trust and it's a history of poor management since.

[essentialinvestor] 19/3/2021 20:53:45

ADIG finally out of Doric Nimrod Air two, about a 70% capital loss on that?.

And not being wise after the event, questioned the 'quality' of that investment here pre pandemic,
already significantly lower than book cost pre Covid-19.


Morningstar give ADIG a one star rating, perhaps generous.

[cc2014] 19/3/2021 16:25:27

Ever feel you're getting sucked in to a position?

Took some more at 91.6.

Edit 16:37 Hopefully today's selling pressure was due to options expiry and it will pop up on Monday.

[essentialinvestor] 19/3/2021 15:41:15

The answer to that question is, No!.

[essentialinvestor] 18/3/2021 19:26:26

If we get some equity weakness some relative outperformance?.

[essentialinvestor] 18/3/2021 14:15:16

CC, very helpful, appreciated.

[cc2014] 18/3/2021 14:03:27

I think perhaps it might be helpful to strip out the FX loss so we can see the performance of the fund manager?

The fund invests mostly in overseas assets and does not hedge (or at least not for very long) and therefore was always going to perform poorly on any strengthening of Sterling. There are very many others in the same situation over the last year.

The notes to the accounts show it's FX exposure is £270m and therefore every tiny 1% move is equivalent to £2.7m.

As we know cable has moved from around $1.20 to $1.40 in the last year or so.


This is the first fund I've held with FX exposure in the last 3 years because Sterling was so weak mostly due to Brexit. Even now with cable at $1.39 I'm still nervous that a more natural level is higher at $1.50. The move along with the discount has enticed me to buy a little but I'm not committing serious money until either all the stars align or I'm offered an outrageous price on a spike down.

[essentialinvestor] 18/3/2021 12:35:12

No one in their right mind would pay close to NAV for multi year underperformance.

NAV over the last 6 months is approx 2% lower.

It takes some skill not to make a positive return over the last few months

but ADIG appear to have done just that.

And get paid for doing so.

[8w] 18/3/2021 11:15:43

Can't see this being wound up anytime soon. New manager, new strategy gives the Board a breathing space before they come up with the next good idea.

I do hope this iteration works out, ADIG holders have endured too much long term pain

[tiltonboy] 18/3/2021 09:32:02

If they upped their buy-back, they would find willing sellers!

[cc2014] 18/3/2021 09:29:39

I honestly don't know what to do... herewith my thoughts.

I have already bought a small amount at an average of 93.6 inc. stamp duty and all costs.

So, I'm looking at the share price and discount and thinking it's a good price. But what I can see is a stream of regular sellers who are providing stock every day to Aberdeen to buy back. Now these buy-backs should be closing the discount and discouraging the sellers but they clearly aren't because the sellers want to sell for whatever reason.

I suspect the sellers may be selling due previous mistakes made by the fund manager but that's all in the past and I've been through the underlying holdings and I'm comfortable enoough. However, my views on this aren't going to stop the sellers selling it down further, if that's their mindset.

Further we now have some drip selling as bond yields are rising.


All the above doesn't really put my off buying any more, albeit it would be nice if the share price would pop down to 90p for half an hour so I can load up and then immediately bounce to 95p.

However, what is putting me off is the strength of the indicies worldwide. I know from the holdings ADIG isn't as senstitive to a general sell-off as most but some form of pull-back has to be on the cards sometime because the Dow and S&P cannot keep going up forever 8 days out of 10. The pattern just isn't consistent with what usually happens. Any decent long term rally requires a test of support but we aren't doing that.

So, I will keep my powder dry because if the say the Dow pulls back to a mere 31,000 I think everything will go with it regardless of whether it should or not.

It's a mad world we live in right now.

[tiltonboy] 17/3/2021 21:27:01

I've said it before, and I will say it again...wind it up

[hugepants] 17/3/2021 21:02:55

This mutt remains on a 17% discount and a near 6% yield.

[essentialinvestor] 05/3/2021 19:12:09

I won't mention any names as do not wish to get personal,
however the previous Aberdeen(SLI) Manager filled me with no confidence whatsoever.
Hopefully he's completely out of the picture now.

Bought a small amount today.

[riverman77] 05/3/2021 16:17:00

To be fair, the portfolio looks fairly decent and inoffensive as it stands today. Nothing I would describe as junk. Would expect it to deliver fairly reliable source of income. The earlier poor performance under the previous Aberdeen fund manager (I'm not talking about before that under Blackrock - less said about that the better) seems to have largely been due to a large position in catastrophe instruments and large amount of very expensive debt. These have both been cleared, and there is a new manager in charge.

[essentialinvestor] 05/3/2021 12:15:34

How accurate are the daily NAV updates given the level of unquoted?.


I see it's down to a 1 star rating now.

[greenpastures2] 05/3/2021 11:54:49

I bought for the income around about that price.

[cc2014] 05/3/2021 09:56:49

Is 92.22 a good price? A bit of a rhetorical question as I committed to the buy button.

Looks like we continue to have a large seller in the background

[hugepants] 24/2/2021 12:42:49

The discount is way too big though. It's nearly 17% compared with the 5% target. I think it will close at some point. They should be cranking up the buybacks. The company has cash and negligible gearing so they can afford to.


Discount Management

During the year ended 30 September 2020, the shares performed poorly relative to the NAV return with the result that the discount to NAV moved from 7.6% to 17.2% (all figures calculated with debt at fair value and excluding income). The Board is very much aware that this level of discount is inconsistent with the previously stated policy which is to seek to maintain the Company's share price discount to NAV (excluding income, with debt at fair value) at less than 5%, subject to normal market conditions. Whilst the latter half of the year under review cannot be regarded as 'normal market conditions' given the extraordinary uncertainties relating to COVID-19, it does not fully excuse the wide discount that prevailed at the end of September 2020. Through the year, the Company remained committed to buying-back shares and a total of 5.65 million shares were repurchased for a value of £5.7 million. The Board, however, feels that in order for the share buy-back to be truly effective performance improvement from the portfolio is an absolute priority, so it will continue to make some allowances for both market conditions and the changes to the portfolio that are set out in this Report

[speedsgh] 24/2/2021 12:34:30

ADIG has been a serial underperformer for years. Unless you're looking for a quick trade, I would employ the bargepole. About time that the trust was put out of its misery and wound up. Aimho.

[cc2014] 24/2/2021 12:30:50

Share prices fell overnight in the East while we were sleeping, which is the danger here. If we get a pullback in markets (generally) of say 5% which in my imho would not be unreasonable, will the sharprice fall or will the NAV close? I'd bet on the share price falling.

I am watching. I'd like something around 92-93p to entice me to press the buy button. I don't think that very likely but there again this market is mad. Who knows where it is going next, but I fear more than anything we haven't had a proper pullback in months since all this retail money came into the market and I wonder how many stops will fire once it starts falling. Not, that I think there's much speculative retail money in ADIG but if the market starts falling everything will go with it.

Who knows. If you had asked me yesterday I'd have said I'd got no chance at 93p and it would require a big sell-off and distressed sellers. Today it's only 3 percent away which looks do-able.