Great Portland Estates Share Discussion Threads

[nil pd] 17/8/2007 06:39

gold:

I thought GPE sold a major proportion of the FTSE call option? Well before this recent "correction", fortunately.

[goldthorpe] 16/8/2007 11:50

Dr. S,

GPE hasn't fallen any further than the overall market in recent weeks. It's certainly performed less worse than the banks. Given that GPE was somewhat 'overbought' in the last few months, with the share price almost reaching last published NAV, that's not bad. GPE uses borrowings to re-finance, but I think that they are more prudent than some of the bigger private equity groups and of course the so-called "hedge" funds.

GPE has been spinning off some major investments over the last few years: Maplin (very profitable return), Wagamama, Jane Norman, Upol to name a few. At the time of the 2006 annual report the biggest individual companies it holds are:
* Cinque Ports (caravan parks, 5.2% of investment portfolio, invested 2006)
* Micheldever (tyre distributor, 4%, 2006)
* Huntress (recruitment, 3.9%, 2000)
* Go Plant (road-sweepers, 3.8%, 1995)
* OPD (recruitment, 3.1%, 1991)
* Wagamama (restaurants, 3.3%, 1996)
* Standard Brands (firelighters, 3.3%, 2001)

So some investments are very recent and unlikely to be sold soon, some are very old, and have been either been floated or sold off with GPE retaining a stake (e.g. Wagamama).

I think the real unknown, and one which the well-respected contributor to this thread "thedaidai" has expressed concern, is the future commitment primarily into funds rather than individual companies (see news thread 03/05/2007 10:30 UKREG Proposals: future development). I think this would allow GPE to punch above its weight by having access to larger deals. Presumably these are likely to involve the larger element of borrowing we see are having difficulties at the moment.

Having said that, GPE recently had a large amount of cash, nearly 40% of net assets; though set against this is the geared FTSE call option it holds. If still there, this large cash element may be a way to pick up assets on the cheap during the turmoil of the current credit crunch.

I've rambled and sorry I haven't really provided a satisfactory answer to your questions. For my part, I've been an investor since 2001 and built a large holding - perhaps too large a proportion of my overall investments. I'm staying with them; though in recent months I've taken advantage of the high share price to sell about one third of my holding and diversify into higher yielding "megacap" shares.

[dr square] 11/8/2007 09:13

Hi all

Well bought these for my son with the Goverments kind handout plus a bit from me, didn`t even know it had a BB. So thanks all for your information and posts.

couple of questions if anyone can answer?

1: Why are we going up in a market that is bombing? Considering the nature of the funds investments this should be falling should it not?

2: While I know little about management buy outs etc. Venture capital trusts work on a basis of 5 year return of assets? In believe. do we think that GPE are due to spin of any of its investments in the near term to free even more cash?

In advance thank you for your answers

regards

[nil pd] 29/6/2007 09:17

Hi Goldy. Then if you're not fussed by the press I'll stick with it a while. But I'm keeping a close watch. Maybe the massive re-purchase was to protect the balance sheet in pre-emption of loss of tax relief in the future.

[goldthorpe] 28/6/2007 08:13

Amazing: more than 4% of the shares in issue removed from the market in one day. BP manages that in about 10 months. I wonder how the NAV stands at the moment?

I'm not too bothered about the poor press, though any removal of tax relief on interest may hit the bottom line.

[nil pd] 27/6/2007 12:51

Actually it was 3.83 million. Way above "normal" repurchase amounts the company has made.

Any views on how the current poor press that Private Equity is receiving may impact GPE?

[nil pd] 27/6/2007 12:48

3.3 million shares repurchased. Haven't checked the history, but from recollection that's a lot more than usual. May partly explain yesterday's volume.

[goldthorpe] 26/6/2007 20:45

Apparent sell volume today of 9.2M: about 11% of the shares in issue! Largest Volume in last 5 years.
I don't think this is quite the picture, since bid and offer prices on close same as on open.
I wonder what is going on?
Any ideas?

[goldthorpe] 07/6/2007 13:48

4 JUNE 2007, PART-DISPOSAL OF FTSE OPTION,
"Graphite Enterprise Trust PLC (the "Company") announces that it has today sold
25% of the FTSE 100 call option....This part-disposal followed a fall in cash and near-cash balances and an increase in the exposure to the FTSE 100 Index provided by the Option...."


Good timing methinks.

[thedaidai] 06/5/2007 09:24

Very happy with the new strategy But I have to say most/all of it could/should have been in place at least a year ago.
It was obvious then that GPE had become effectively a "fund of funds" plus an underperforming lump of cash and Graphite Capital were creaming off 1.5% just for picking the funds and holding the cash.
Glad to see the buy-back announcement but again it could/should have been done a year ago.
The FTSE option has done well but I would still have preferred them to return excess capital at the time and let me decide how to invest it.
Still happy to hold a much smaller percentage of my portfolio in this than was the case when this was a real venture capital trust.

[goldthorpe] 03/5/2007 15:03

Big share buy-back programme too. That's what's probably caused the share price uplift?

[18bt] 03/5/2007 12:26

New investment strategy announced with far greater emphasis on funds and changes to Graphite's remuneration. Also new NAV of 465.6 on new share price up 16p, this is a discount of 6.7% probably about right now.

[nil pd] 23/3/2007 04:02

Excellent progress and pleased with the NAV and dividend. Not at all surprised by the recent share price fluctuation, given the FTSE call option.

Better than messing around with AIM trash.

[nat7] 16/3/2007 16:34

it does seem to have a bit of upward momentum over the last couple of days - maybe the discount to NAV is starting to narrow

[goldthorpe] 16/3/2007 16:26

True, but they do value the investments quite conservatively.

[nat7] 16/3/2007 14:40

i was hoping for more - it only just beat it's benchmark.

[goldthorpe] 16/3/2007 14:31

Results out. End 2006 NAV 454.6p, up 14%. Better than I thought.
Divi increased to 6.5p. We still have a double digit discount.

[goldthorpe] 14/3/2007 15:26

Me and my big mouth. Spoke too soon.

[netsurfer] 14/3/2007 09:20

together with Hg capital, it is one of my better investments

[goldthorpe] 14/3/2007 08:58

Price holding well in the current market rout despite GPE holding the FTSE Call Option. I wonder if it's been sold?

[goldthorpe] 12/3/2007 08:04

2006 results must be out in the next 2 weeks. Guesses at Dec 2006 and current NAV?

[nil pd] 10/3/2007 22:49

400p breached. Onward and upward hopefully, certainly a good sign chartwise.

[nil pd] 14/1/2007 22:20

What we need at the top of this are graphs! (I hope this worked - it shows the nice cup+ handle on the way up back in 2005).

EDIT: didn't work - will try again.

EDIT2 : Yay! worked second time...

[goldthorpe] 12/1/2007 13:20

edited 17/01/2007 to correct mis-calculation:

Based on last announcement of total assets of 363.1M (30/09/2006 valuation) with 80,655,718 ahares is issue, and about 12.9M spent on buy-backs since valuation, nav must now be about 434p/share. Take it up to say 2.5% to 445p at end of 2006, and we now have a discount of perhaps 12%.