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MRCH Merchants Trust Plc

534.00
5.00 (0.95%)
Last Updated: 14:01:02
Delayed by 15 minutes
Share Name Share Symbol Market Type Share ISIN Share Description
Merchants Trust Plc LSE:MRCH London Ordinary Share GB0005800072 ORD 25P
  Price Change % Change Share Price Bid Price Offer Price High Price Low Price Open Price Shares Traded Last Trade
  5.00 0.95% 534.00 533.00 535.00 534.00 531.00 532.00 309,036 14:01:02
Industry Sector Turnover Profit EPS - Basic PE Ratio Market Cap
Trust,ex Ed,religious,charty 48.86M 40.19M 0.2699 19.79 795.01M
Merchants Trust Plc is listed in the Trust,ex Ed,religious,charty sector of the London Stock Exchange with ticker MRCH. The last closing price for Merchants was 529p. Over the last year, Merchants shares have traded in a share price range of 477.00p to 588.00p.

Merchants currently has 148,877,887 shares in issue. The market capitalisation of Merchants is £795.01 million. Merchants has a price to earnings ratio (PE ratio) of 19.79.

Merchants Share Discussion Threads

Showing 326 to 350 of 2925 messages
Chat Pages: Latest  21  20  19  18  17  16  15  14  13  12  11  10  Older
DateSubjectAuthorDiscuss
15/8/2019
11:13
Should be decent support just below here.
tim 3
06/8/2019
11:14
I topped u today at 4.61, will add on any weakness, this will recover in a month or so.
chc15
06/8/2019
07:40
High volume on yesterdays fall not sure why its been so weak of late.

440 support probably going to be tested tempted to add a few (which I don't usually do) if it does.

tim 3
20/7/2019
11:20
This seems to be lagging the market a bit be nice to get over £5 again.
tim 3
07/7/2019
16:12
This was a highly welcome announcement last Weds. Weighted average interest rate on all borrowings now down to 3.5% from 6.0%. V positive for continued dividend growth.

The Merchants Trust PLC Announces Renegotiation of Debt -

speedsgh
02/7/2019
22:41
Hi Goldpig.

I have the misfortune of being hit by Woodfords decline as I own some of the SJP funds he has managed and to put it mildly his performance not only short term but over the last few 5 years has been horrendous compared to the UK equity sector.

He was very successful before that and as a long term investor I held on but SJP have now dumped him and I doubt I will recover the losses he made.

Some of his averaging down has been disastrous like Capita where he kept buying from over £10 to nearly a pound when it was pretty obvious to everyone things were not right.He then sold very close to the bottom.That is not an isolated example either.

Personally I will never trust my money with him again buying all those small companies with limited liquidity and then listing them on the Guernsey exchange to get round maximum holding regulations was a step to far for me particularly in a fund which was marketed as relatively cautious.

The general consensus seems to be investors in his equity income fund will face a long wait maybe till Christmas or beyond to get their money back which is totally unacceptable to me.Surely a fund manager should carry out due diligence to ensure a high amount of redemptions could be handled?

Of course if his investments become ridiculously cheap then they may be worth a punt but for he he has lost that vital ingredient of a fund manager, trust.

Good luck with your investing you seem to have a similar approach to me.I was a big Woodford fan once but not now even if they do recover at some point.

Regards

Tim

tim 3
02/7/2019
22:15
Thanks Goldpig.

I also hold DIG, plus other investment trusts SHRS and TMPL. Also would recommend looking at PEY which is a private equity investment trust, so you avoid the duplication of sub-holdings. All in my SIPP, together a selection of other decent dividend paying companies (non-ITs).

bluemango
02/7/2019
21:55
Hi bluemango and Tim 3,


Thanks, I missed the announcement earlier today. Investment Trusts are core holdings in my ISA. With so much uncertainty in the market IT's offer some income protection, especially those with good dividend reserves.


I am fully invested in MRCH for the size of my ISA portfolio and expect to hold these for years to come. Since April I have been adding to DIG where I currently hold just under 15,000 shares and am hoping for a summer pullback to provide a good buying opportunity.

Interesting comment about Woodford. He has just been given another 28 day extension to freeze dealings in his equity income fund and is engaging in a fire sale of assets. So far he has sold over £350 million of shares in mostly smaller companies.

I would not write Woodford off. When the dust has settled I will certainly take another look at his funds. Am very glad I never bought into any of them when he first set them up.

Goldpig

goldpiguk
02/7/2019
18:05
Yes all good happy to continue to hold long term.Wonder if investment trusts may get a boost following the Woodford debacle.
tim 3
02/7/2019
15:49
Another increase in dividend just announced:

"The board has declared a first quarterly dividend of 6.7p per ordinary share, an increase of 4.7% on the first quarter of last year. It is the board's intention to at least maintain the quarterly dividend at this level for the rest of the year, which would lead to a minimum annual dividend of 26.8p, an increase of 3.1%"

bluemango
18/3/2019
15:03
Dividend growth has been pretty anaemic until recently as a result of the eye-wateringly expensive debt that the trust has been carrying.

£34m debenture carrying an effective interest rate of 11.28% was finally repaid in Jan 2018. This has been replaced by £35m of private placement notes at 2.96%.

There is a further £42m debenture repayable in May 2023 which carries an interest rate of 9.25125% and £30m 5.875% secured bonds which are due to be repaid in Dec 2029. Current borrowings have an average interest rate of 6.1%.

The uptick in the dividend growth rate is very welcome and can hopefully be sustained. Confirmation of the final dividend fo FY19 will be contained with the Final Results which ought to be released in the next couple of weeks or so.

Has anyone seen any estimates for the dividend in FY20?

TOTAL FY 2018/19 - 25.90p (E) (+4.4%)
TOTAL FY 2017/18 - 24.80p (+2.5%)
TOTAL FY 2016/17 - 24.20p (+0.8%)
TOTAL FY 2015/16 - 24.00p (+0.8%)
TOTAL FY 2014/15 - 23.80p (+0.8%)
TOTAL FY 2013/14 - 23.60p (+1.7%)
TOTAL FY 2012/13 - 23.20p (+0.9%)
TOTAL FY 2011/12 - 23.00p (+0.9%)
TOTAL FY 2010/11 - 22.80p (+1.3%)
TOTAL FY 2012/13 - 22.50p

speedsgh
18/3/2019
00:22
Thanks Goldpig

Bottom line as I see it is I doubt you will ever get rich with mrch but what you are likely to get is a steady income and although you will get swings in the long term your capital should be relatively safe too.

tim 3
17/3/2019
21:26
Hi,

A good article in this weeks This is Money saying we are on track for at least a 4.4% dividend rise this year, This is a really good share to tuck away for the ISA in these uncertain times.
Link below:




Goldpig

goldpiguk
06/3/2019
20:25
I hold these.
Top 10 holdings update.
Stock Name Market Value %
------------------------------------------ ------------------- -------
GBP
GlaxoSmithKline Plc 35,206,869 5.31
Royal Dutch Shell Plc B Shs 32,826,354 4.95
Imperial Brands Plc 28,865,000 4.36
HSBC Holdings Plc 26,242,331 3.96
Legal & General Group Plc 23,991,300 3.62
BP Plc 23,500,064 3.55
BAE Systems Plc 22,018,211 3.32
BHP Group Plc 20,810,277 3.14
SSE Plc 18,354,600 2.77
Standard Life Aberdeen Plc 17,641,853 2.66

escapetohome
06/3/2019
20:03
Nice recovery recently seems to track the FTSE fairly closely.
tim 3
23/1/2019
14:55
Dividend Declaration -

The board has declared a third quarterly dividend of 6.5p per Ordinary Share, payable on 6 March 2019 to holders on the register at the close of business on 1 February 2019. It is the board's intention to at least maintain quarterly dividends at the current level for the rest of the year, which would lead to a minimum annual dividend of 25.9p for 2018/19, an increase of 4.4% on the previous year.

speedsgh
07/1/2019
12:41
Mail on Sunday highlighted Merchants Trust yesterday:

Cheers,
PJ

pj fozzie
10/12/2018
09:01
Yes, if we are about to go in to a new bear market.
There may be one final upswing left in this cycle. Difficult call.
We look late cycle, at best.

essentialinvestor
10/12/2018
08:58
I picked up lots of investment trusts in 2010/2011 and made a packet over the next few years. But back then they were available at huge discounts which is still not the case now. There are still much bigger falls to come and I am not buying any trusts until the discounts start to really open up.
rcturner2
07/12/2018
19:11
Hi andyj,

Interesting point about the MRCH share price. The time period you refer to includes the dotcom crash, the banking crisis as well as the current Brexit effect, which has put some foreign investors off investing in the UK entirely.

The MRCH share price has been quite volatile over this time period. At some points during 1998 MRCH shares could have been picked up for around £3.00 a share. The 1998 highs were around the current share price. However it should be noted that since 1998 MRCH has paid out over £3.84 in dividends and is primarily an income investment trust.

The UK FTSE 100 where MRCH has substantial holdings has performed poorly over this time period. The intraday high of 6,950.6 set on 30th December 1999 and the closing high that day of 6,949.63 were not exceeded until 2015.

For an ISA I think investment trusts (I currently hold three) offer well balanced underlying holdings with a higher degree of income protection than holdings in single companies.


In the next few months I expect the UK market to remain very volatile and there is a risk of steep falls especially if we cannot get a satisfactory resolution to the Brexit issue.
If the Government collapses and Corbyn comes to power it will hit the UK FTSE hard especially if they increase Corporation tax as they are currently proposing, force companies to give 10% of their equity (indirectly) to employees and embark on a programme of renationalisation of gas and electricity. Companies in the utility sector will face large demerger costs to separate their businesses where some parts are to be nationalised.

Higher Corporation Taxes would have a direct effect on UK Companies ability to maintain dividend payments, so investment trusts with large dividend reserves will help mitigate this to some extent.

I am continuing to add to my investment trust holdings (recently purchasing more DIG) and in the new tax year will most likely add another Investment Trust to my ISA portfolio.

Goldpig

goldpiguk
06/12/2018
10:48
Wish I had held on to buy ahh the beauty of high insight.
tim 3
06/12/2018
09:40
The dividend appeals, but what deters me is the fact they are at the same price they were in 1998.
andyj
27/11/2018
13:34
Latest Edison research note...

High and growing dividend yield (26/11/18) -

The Merchants Trust (MRCH) is managed by Simon Gergel, chief investment officer of UK equities at AllianzGI. He says the current uptick in volatility in the UK stock market is providing a lot of opportunities for active stock pickers, with a wide divergence between the valuation of shares in companies with steady growth characteristics and those whose earnings outlook is less clear. Although MRCH’s annual dividend has
increased in each of the last 36 years, growth in the years following the global financial crisis has been modest. However, the manager says the refinancing of a large tranche of the trust’s high-cost debt in January 2018, coupled with higher levels of portfolio income, means the board has increased confidence in growing the dividend at a faster rate, from a starting yield of more than 5%...

speedsgh
01/10/2018
11:06
@robo
Thanks for the news excerpt.

About the platitudes, well, "high income" trust and funds are basically about collecting rent, making sure to avoid the companies that shrink their assets for generating their divis. To do so, the investment managers mostly look backward and find that the usual suspects (HSBC, Diageo, BAT, etc.) usually pay their bills, hold their value and even grow a bit over time, so they hold them. So, yep, Simon Gergel's comments are prone to be reassuringly boring. :)

I hold a bit of this type of trust even though I know I pay the managers to hold run-of-the-mill dividend payers, which I could hold individually, but for a modest fee, they indeed spread the risk and do the buying and selling at lower cost than it would be for me as a small retail investor.

vacendak
01/10/2018
10:04
from Christopher Bellew's blog at www.christoperbellew.com

Big Money

Giving investment advice often is like showing off a garden – “if only you’d come last week”. Strangely, although equity markets are very high and international trade will be impacted by US tariffs and Brexit, there are some opportunities.

If you need income you need look no further than these three investment trusts. You won’t know what to do with your money – they all yield the sunny side of 4%.

First, Merchants Trust, founded in 1889, trades at a 3.6% discount to Net Asset Value (NAV) and yields a stonking 4.94%. Manager Simon Gergel explains his philosophy:

“In this environment, our strategy is not to position the portfolio for one specific scenario, but to place a strong emphasis on portfolio construction. We aim to hold a broadly diversified portfolio of companies, across many different industries, both domestically exposed and those with multinational or global businesses.”

Rather amazing that he is paid to deliver such platitudes.

robow
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