London Finance & Investm... Share Discussion Threads

[markt] 24/1/2011 13:38

....I see what you mean...

[jay1948] 19/1/2011 13:22

Markt

The trusts could block a vote for any resolution at a general meeting by sheer weight of number of shares.

I suspect these companies are run as investment vehicles for the trust funds and each has a big fish as a trustee (perhaps sole trustee). Were the beneficiaries of those trusts to get restive and seek, if they were able to under the trust deed, to get their hands on some of the underlying investments at market value, lfi and wse could simply sell all or some of the investments and make a pay out.

If you split the investments between shareholders,the trusts would still need a vehicle for their assets so from their point of view, why disturb things.

There presumably was some reason why they thought two companies, one fully listed and one (originally) on Aim was a good idea. I can't see the advantage and would have thought merging the two would be a good thing for both costs and pricing of the LFI shares which suffer a double discount on the wse investment.

But I would hope any merged co would not end up on the Plus market, as I have recently bought back into these, in a small way, in an ISA. Hm.

[markt] 19/1/2011 12:57

.....so controlled by certain large holders such as the family trusts of the directors....

(holdings in MWB and FIF...not doing much....)

[markt] 19/1/2011 12:47

zzzzzzzz....

[markt] 19/1/2011 12:40

...topvest...
what would you think about receiving your part of the shares that they hold (approx. 3 main shares per LFI and 3 for WSE, +/-)
and then you can hold and benefit from those shares going up (hopefully)

but without paying the running costs

and you would get an instant uplift of aprox 50%-70%, imho, on the current value of your WSE/LFI shares/value because the NAV is much higher than the share price, always operates at a largish discount but at present it is higher than historic average I think...

"you would get an instant uplift of aprox 50%-70%" imho

Your yearly gain would be higher....and you can sell out of any investee company if it breaks your stop loss...which WSE/LFI have failed to do in the past....

it doesn't appeal ?
(does to me !)

(pros and cons to everything....if you held the investee shares directly and not via WSE/LFI then of course you would need to monitor the news from those companies....and make decisions as to whether to hold or sell or buy more after results....)

Another advantage of holding the shares directly would be that you would know the value of the shares at all times....whereas with LFI and WSE you only discover the official NAV every few months, with results or AGM statement, the rest of the time you are in the dark, unless you do your own calcs, like me....

also, you would benefit from liquidity by holding the investee shares yourself and not via WSE/LFI....LFI and WSE are illiquid....whereas if you held the shares of MWB, NBI, CRE, FIF, SWL, directly then these are much more liquid so if you wanted the money to buy a car or new heating system then much easier to free up 5-10k of cash...

You would also see a 5-10% increase in the NAV wiping out the share option shares, not issued so far I believe and not under option I think.....

[topvest] 18/1/2011 22:02

I can see WSE and LFI merging to create just one company. There are duplicate costs involved with these two companies and I suspect that the WSE move to PLUS was the start of this process. Lets wait and see. I'd like one or both to continue personally as not a bad investment to hold long term.

[jay1948] 18/1/2011 16:07

markt

The directors of LFI control c. 23m shares out of 31m issued. They will do what suits their interests - which I doubt would include a winding up.

[markt] 18/1/2011 13:23

.....been in LFI from much higher prices.....not turned out to have been one of my better picks...

[markt] 16/12/2010 15:36

..holding in MWB not turned out very well.....

[markt] 12/12/2010 20:30

Topvest
....you got any suggestions for shares worth taking a look at ?

...nothing from me, I'm just starting to do some research, may have some money to buy something in a month or so's time...

[markt] 08/9/2010 16:29

....the spread on this thing is a pain....

[topvest] 20/8/2010 15:24

I keep looking at buying more WSE, but I can't quite bring myself to do it with 10,000+ warrants about to expire at 50p, and a large enough holding already in both LFI and WSE.

[topvest] 20/8/2010 15:22

thanks!

Anyone think that LFI may bid for WSE when the warrants come up later in the year?

Very odd that LFI's investments are doing poorly

WSE's investments are doing brilliantly

Whereas WSE is on a massive discount - the listing on PLUS was a total disaster, other than cutting costs. WSE have 4 very good strategic investments with a book value over 60p. Maybe the time has come to merge the two? Maybe this was the plan all along by dropping WSE to PLUS a while back. Any thoughts?

[oooff] 19/8/2010 14:25

Bought 10000 and nudged the price up 1p.

[markt] 12/8/2010 12:03

CWA1
...if you adjust the timescale on your chart (to be 3 years) you can avoid that problem !

;-)

[markt] 12/8/2010 12:01

WSE price, on plusmarkets. 30p sell, 37p buy.....but if put a limit order in valid for 5 or 7 days......If market maker gets offerred shares at 30p, then should be happy to sell on immediately in a no risk trade at say 10-15% profit (IMO), ie. a buy order with a limit price. If market maker has to hold the cshares himself, then he takes risk and will want bigger % profit/spread.

[cwa1] 10/8/2010 10:02

Blimey. LFI shares CAN go up as well as down!

[topvest] 09/8/2010 08:26

markt - yes, got lots of WSE already. FIF is a good company and will survive in my opinion. They can't just sell a 15% shareholding; they are a strategic long term investor.

[markt] 07/8/2010 13:49

.....incidentally....that LFI did not sell out of FIF.....stupid, incompetent perhaps...(and difficult to find a worse sector to have invested in, bread/cakes on negligible margins since the supermarkets control the prices and nail them ....and with tiny margins come high investment costs for volume production bakery machinery....and then customers that are so powerful that they refuse to accept price linking to the costs of raw materials like flour, gas etc.
Flour costs expected to rise since Russia has prohibited export of all wheat and related products.

[markt] 07/8/2010 13:43

topvest
....have you looked at wse recently by the way ?

[topvest] 24/2/2010 09:56

Reasonably solid interims and dividend of 0.3p. Looks ok.

[cwa1] 22/2/2010 14:37

TRADING STATEMENT

In terms of the JSE Limited Listings Requirements ("the Listings
Requirements"), companies are required to publish a trading statement as soon
as they are reasonably certain that the financial results for the current
reporting period will be more than 20% different from that of the previous
corresponding period.

In terms of the Listings Requirements, Lonfin accordingly advises that it
expects that earnings per share for the six month period ended 31st December
2009 are likely to increase by between 140% and 160% compared with those of the
comparative period of last year, and headline earnings per share for the six
month period ended 31st December 2009 are likely to increase by between 120%
and 140% to those of the comparative period of last year.

Shareholders are advised that the above information has not been reviewed or
reported on by Lonfin's external auditors.

The preliminary announcement of the company's results for the six months ended
31st December 2009 is expected to be announced on 24th February 2010

[topvest] 14/2/2010 20:49

Well still hold these. Interims due any day now. WSE seem to be doing better than LFI at the moment. So 3 investments; WSE doing well, MWB badly, FIF not so well. Can't see an interim dividend here, but can see something at WSE maybe.

[balcony] 30/9/2009 22:39

Topvest-Also in FIF so today not a good day for income,Lets see what the next 6 months bring