Scottish Investment Share Discussion Threads

[hugepants] 20/10/2021 07:56

Merger announced

[spectoacc] 05/10/2021 08:28

Researching it, I'd forgotten they said at the beginning of June:


"The Board therefore announced on 2 June 2021 that it was undertaking a review of the future investment management arrangements of the Company and had appointed Stanhope Consulting to assist it in the review. The Board has invited proposals from established fund management groups, with the experience of managing listed closed-ended funds, designed to deliver, over the longer term, above index returns through a diversified global portfolio of attractively valued companies with good earnings prospects and sustainable dividend growth. Any such proposals will be considered alongside the current management arrangements, which the Board notes have delivered strong recent short-term performance.

There is no certainty that any changes will result from the review. The Board will make further announcements in due course."


4 months on - surely that counts as "..In due course"?

But been buying a few this morning in various small a/cs - most of today's reported sells are my buys, getting well inside.

Not taken with BT being in top 5, but like the top 3 in gold co's (despite undoubted cost pressures ahead), & the prospect of some sort of discount reduction if they do find a manager who can beat the market.

[hugepants] 04/10/2021 15:12

Hmmm but its quite a bit below pre-pandemic level unlike many others.
A global "value" trust. Agree it won't fall as much if the markets do go down the toilet.

[spectoacc] 04/10/2021 15:05

If you ignore their record and just look at the holdings, seems a decent IT :)

Likely going down with everything else first tho.

Historic discount over past 10 years is around 10-11%, so not quite cheap yet IMO.

[hugepants] 04/10/2021 15:01

Discount up to 13.5% here. They have several big oil companies in the top 10 which have been doing well. And the 3 top holdings are gold stocks which have been weak recently.

[ryesloan] 07/6/2021 16:54

SCIN is one of the few self managed trusts left so it would be a shame from a historical perspective if the Board threw in the towel and moved it to a big asset manager.But considering the long term performance it could be argued that they should be doing exactly that as their shareholders have not really benefited from this independent structure.

[ryesloan] 07/6/2021 16:51

Or you could be very cynical and say it's the perfect time to do a review.The perennial under performing manager points to recent short term out performance and says that their patience is just coming true and now is not the time to give up.The board get to say they have done the review and back the managers review.Everyone carries on as normal.

[aurelius5] 05/6/2021 07:18

Yes, it seems the wrong move at the wrong time. SCIN has certainly underperformed other global trusts -BNKR, SAIN, WTAN - over the last 5 years but growth is looking rather long in the tooth and value is coming back into vogue. The next five years could be very different. All securities can under and over perform for multi-year periods and short-termism is rarely helpful.

[spectoacc] 02/6/2021 07:24

Curious to do this now, just when things seem to be going the right direction:

"Review of Investment Management Arrangements


The Board of The Scottish Investment Trust PLC (the "Company") announces that it will undertake a review of the future investment management arrangements of the Company.

In 2015 the Company adopted a high conviction, global contrarian investment approach. The Board's view was that a period of at least 5 years would be required to evaluate the Company's returns under this mandate. The Company does not have a formal benchmark but, by way of comparison, the Company's NAV total return has underperformed the sterling total return of the MSCI All Country World Index over the 5 years ended 30 April 2021."

[spoole5] 15/5/2021 21:07

I think that time is now!

[spoole5] 16/4/2021 11:30

25% gold miners weighting could start to pay off soon.

[spectoacc] 09/4/2021 09:43

Sold out on XD yesterday, good luck holders.

[spoole5] 12/3/2021 14:30

I think there is a good chance of the gold miner position being very profitable over the medium term

[spectoacc] 12/3/2021 14:28

Full page ad in this weeks IC:

"The Scottish Investment Trust

We Invest in Ugly Ducklings...

...Until they become fully fledged swans."



That's a Top 10 of Newmont, Barrick, Newcrest, Pfizer, Japan Tobacco, BT, UU, Gilead, Kirin, Tesco.


Struggling to see any future swans, or even particularly any ugly ducklings. It's a strategy, just not the one SCIN appear to be following.

Performance OK vs UK All-cap - behind over 6 months, level over 1 year, behind over 3 years, ahead over 5yrs & 10yrs. But well behind MSCI All Countries Index, arguably more relevant, over all time periods. Missing the tech boom is understandable enough, but eg over 10yrs SCIN returned 177% to MSCI All's 274%.

I think someone's shot the swans.

[spectoacc] 10/3/2021 16:01

Thanks @HP. The continual buybacks must be helping incrementally too. Suspect I'll be out again when it narrows back to 9% or better.

[hugepants] 10/3/2021 15:58

I'm guessing its the oil majors that have helped the NAV recently. There are 2 in the top ten as of end Feb and the likes of BP and Shell just outside.


The gold stocks are down 30% in the last 6 months so good potential upside to the NAV if gold recovers.

[aurelius5] 09/3/2021 19:13

The price is increasingly compressed. This could start to move soon.

[spectoacc] 09/3/2021 13:51

Yes not sure what's done well in that portfolio with gold having been weak. The buyback policy aims to keep it at 9%, they need to get cracking.

[spoole5] 09/3/2021 13:48

15% discount here now

[spoole5] 12/2/2021 19:30

Is this the most boring global trust on the market?

[stockstockham] 03/2/2021 06:52

I'm in it as a "safe" hold, but when markets do crash back, gold's going with them, and gold miners (top 3 holdings) too. So yes - SCIN lose on the upside (no bubble stocks, no recovery stocks) and seem to lose on the downside too. The 5yr chart says it all.

Triumph of hope over experience.

[hugepants] 02/2/2021 23:21

"Stockstockham31 Dec '20 - 13:57 - 18 of 25
SCIN seems to manage to perform poorly in falling markets and rising markets."

As you say, this lot seem to be on the wrong side of everything!

[stockstockham] 01/2/2021 09:12

After 9am and still a 42p spread.

[stockstockham] 12/1/2021 13:04

Gold been a bit naff, but the NAV has held up & they'll drive it back to c.9% with buybacks.