Great Portland Estates Share Discussion Threads

[goldthorpe] 16/12/2005 11:50

Nil Pd,
Same long term hold for me. I have a large proportion of my total share-holdings+pension fund in GPE. I started in a small way in 1999, but had the cash to pile in when they were in the 2.00-2.50 mark in 2001-2004, with an average buying price of 2.40. I adopted the adage (forget who said this: Buffett?) "put all your eggs in one basket and watch that basket very carefully".

I often wished the price to stay low so I could get more whilst people on this and other boards bemoaned it being static.

[nil pd] 16/12/2005 10:13

Yes, very nice indeed to have patience rewarded! Even though this is a very long term hold for me, I watch it quite closely and expect the discount to close further once it trades cum-div again. There may even be case for trading at a small premium, given past performance.

[goldthorpe] 16/12/2005 07:49

18BT.
No, I haven't heard anything. Shareholders received a letter this week concerning the special divi (payable today), the unusually large income and the new website The price has risen on most days since it went ex-divi. Perhaps it's just a closing of the discount: few want to sell and rather more want to buy.

[18bt] 15/12/2005 17:08

Anyone picked up any rumours of a realisation or new investment?

[goldthorpe] 15/12/2005 11:03

We are rapidly approaching NAV!
There must be a shortage of sellers since the volume has been thin recently.
Nice to see our patience rewarded.

[18bt] 25/11/2005 08:53

Sorry all; just early morning MM activity. Back to last night's close.

[18bt] 25/11/2005 08:07

Why the strong rise this morning. Can't be just due to the spec. div?

[purse] 22/11/2005 13:36

Nice movement in price following the Divi & NAV announcement.
Still room for a further rise if the NAV is really 376p area.

[nil pd] 20/11/2005 20:49

Up 8 pence on Friday with news of the 376p NAV and special dividend. Still trading at a big discount (bid 338p). I expect another rise for GPE tomorrow.

Nice solid background growth, behind my speculative forays (have been in VOG since August!!)

[abeetle2] 04/11/2005 11:04

Who knows why investment trust prices vary - except i guess the market-makers.
Here is one possibility. There is I believe a 6-month reevaluation of NAV due. If you look back at GPE's price behaviour prior to announcements favourable to NAV there has been a prior dip - with no NAV movement or strong selling pressure. This would allow purchasers who want to 'guess' the new NAV will have increased to make a bigger profit. Is this happening again?

[corrientes] 04/11/2005 07:37

Equitable Life.

[corrientes] 04/11/2005 00:50

Is the guy in charge the one who screwed up EL ?

[rambutan2] 04/11/2005 00:35

i would suspect that there is a seller in the mkt and has been for a while. and that is why they keep buying back shares. in fact from a shareholder's point of view you are better off the lower the price they manage to buyback at (assuming nav isn't also falling).

re thedaidai point of view, i couldnt agree more. they came a cropper at the end of the tech boom because they were holding such a heavy weighting in listed shares. why expose themselves to an index when their strength is in specific situations?

[purse] 03/11/2005 15:07

Could the explanation from thedaidai, account for the drop in price on an almost daily basis since the RNS.
Vitually all my other Inv Trusts are blue and doing well.

[thedaidai] 02/11/2005 18:48

The way I read it is as follows:-
The nominal value of the option per the RNS is £120m and the index base point is 5142

At tonights FTSE 100 close of 5359, GPE has made a notional profit of
£5.6m (5369/5142 *120m - 120m) which equates to 5.1p per share.

However, the option cost £14m or 16.5p per share, so the index would have to rise above 5742 by the end of the three year term for GPE to make any money out of it.

I don't particularly like the idea of GPE spending my money on this kind of thing. If I want a FTSE100 option I can get one myself. I would prefer them to concentrate on their core competence of investing in venture capital opportunities whether this be directly (e.g. Maplin, Wagamama) or indirectly (e.g. Lion Capital, Candover) and use any excess funds to buy back their shares if the market chooses to value them at a large discount to NAV.

I seem to recall GPE spending a largish chunk of money on a FTSE350 fund at the peak of the market in 2000 and quietly losing a lot of it when the market tanked.

I have no reason to believe GPE can predict future market levels any better than anyone else can

[nil pd] 02/11/2005 12:08

I was thinking the same thing goldthorpe. The instrument must have increased in value significantly, ergo the share price is worth more. But I have no idea how this particular instrument works.

Maybe the fact that GPE have bought the index is a 'recommendation'! I might look into it, perhaps via CFD?

[goldthorpe] 02/11/2005 08:08

FTSO 100 presently about 5340. I wonder how much the option is worth and how it's geared to FTS 100? Any idea what option they used and where to find out more about it?

[nil pd] 24/10/2005 14:35

Nice RNS today, regarding the FTSE call option. Excellent strategy.

[thedaidai] 01/10/2005 12:43

Just read an article stating that investment trust discounts generally are down to an average of 6.4% due to hedge funds predators trying to get them on the cheap

I hadn't picked this up previously as GPE is my only investment trust

This may mean that my earlier suggestion that they have another disposal or NAV uplift up their sleeves is unfounded

[nil pd] 30/9/2005 13:18

thedaidai:

Agreed. The thread of my post was that GPE's buy-back actions implies knowledge of a higher NAV than the sum of the figures known to us. I'm glad that my interpretation is backed up! Sometimes I think with rose tinted brain cells!

Let's see if there are any more buy-backs to follow and what effect they have.

[thedaidai] 29/9/2005 23:46

Based on public information, I estimate the current adjusted NAV to be £3.68 per share, based on their own 30/6/05 interims figure of £3.585 plus approx 8.5p extra from the post 30/6 disposal of Jane Norman and about 1p from the impending takeover of Ottakar's of which GPE has 513k shares which were valued at around £3 on 30/6 and are now at around £4.50

The latest buyback at 328p represents only an 11% discount to this NAV which doesn't sound like a hugely attractive discount. I would only expect them to consider buybacks when the discount is greater than 15%.

This leads me to suspect that they have another disposal or NAV uplift up their sleeves.

Any thoughts?

[nil pd] 29/9/2005 12:11

18BT, don't know about further disposals but the recent buy backs are sending a very clear message.

The interims the other day included this statement:

"...we will consider buying back more shares if they are
available in reasonable volumes at an attractive discount".

Given that GPE have so far made the following sharebuy-backs:

21 September 2005 - 250,000 shares at 316.75p
28 September 2005 - 150,000 shares at 328p

...it is clear that GPE consider that the shares are "at an attractive discount". I guess they are the ones in the know, so I will follow their lead!

[18bt] 26/9/2005 12:39

Is the further share price rise justdue to the buy-back or is there another disposal rumoured?

Have held these for years and they ust sit in my SIPP for the very long term.

BT

[nil pd] 22/9/2005 16:06

Well that seems to have done the trick (RNS today about share buy-back). share price is up and the graph tells us where it is headed! Also the spread is narrower. I've been adding regularly.