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Portfolio MAGAZINE
Data centres and deglobalisation: Inside £420m Utilico Emerging Markets portfolio
Jacqueline Broers discusses the trends shaping the Utilico Emerging Markets portfolio
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Two points.
1. It's been this low before and bounced back
2. I'm sure I read somewhere recently tipping it |
Report: everything down except dividends holding. |
Nice purchases by family Jillings. |
We can borrow money and gear up again.
New £50mil banking facility with Barclays. |
Belatedly reading the 2023 AR.
It looks like Petalite, which was soaring last year got us burnt in the end. Fair enough, the general EV excitement lead by the climate emergency idiocy has cooled down significantly of late, so small companies like Petalite are more likely to suffer wild swings.
Still, another case of buying into magic beans for ICM. Well, back to be a relatively small percentage of the whole company, which means the breach of the level 3 investment limit we got into last year has now solved itself.
Otherwise okay-ish performance in the currently difficult or "challenging" EM sector. |
If you look at the small emerging market IT group they are having a dire year so far. Only the Gulf Investment Fund is an exception, continuing a very strong three years or so. But this is not a typical emerging market fund at all.
The main problem with Utilico is the widening of the discount to NAV which is so obvious from a chart comparing NAV and price (I use Trustnet). It has quite suddenly widened in the last few months and is now pretty much in line with the general deterioration in IT valuations outlined in this week-end's FT. These vehicles are just out of fashion, losing out to ETFs, UK money has been going into the USA market. I don't know what might change this, I wish I could be helpful but am concerned ITs are becominga kind of imperial relic. |
As usual,this is sponsored research but a fair assessment. It performs well against its peers and benchmark. It is not really on fire because EMs have not been doing that great of late. It keeps to its 9-10% total return average per year since inception.
Still shedding more on China year-on-year, which is wise from my point of view. |
Interviewed on Quoteddata today:https://youtu.be/0iuRHAZ4YjI?si=2qsxUzjUnOwADSrj |
I have found this recently:
Nice little end of 2023 update. |
Emerging Markets presentation featuring Charles Jillings |
Exactly. Ocean W has always been a mystery to me, usually very cheap but under tight insider control |
Reading the AR23, at least Petalite has been a good bet so far. We are now above the 10% limit on unlisted companies... due to re-valuation, so nice to be in this situation indeed.
Who knew that the UK was an attractive "Emerging Market"! :)
Only one mention of Ocean Wilsons indeed in the report, the previously posted extract. So, even if we still have some, it will not be much. |
We had held Ocean Wilsons for, like forever, and then sold it a few months before a nice uptick. :(
Oh well, I guess the crystal ball got cloudy. |
I thought I had better check and, yes, I was wrong. This is from the annual report
'UEM exited from PT Link Net Tbk following an offer for
the business at a premium. UEM reduced its investment
in Simpar S.A., My E.G. Services Berhad, Ocean Wilsons
Holdings Limited, Corporacion Financiera Colombiana S.A.,
China Everbright Greentech Limited, Societe Nationale des
Telecommunications du Senegal, Naver Corporation Limited
and KT Corporation, all of which fell outside the top thirty
holdings'
ref |
They sold this as was confirmed n the annual report which I looked at this morning. Last year was a tough one but I thouyght overall they had a pretty decent outturn. |
Is it just me or have we just missed on the latest news/markup from Ocean Wilsons?
The latest HY23 had it at 2.3% in the portfolio in September '22.
Last mention of it was in the March factsheet:
"The majority of investments in UEM’s portfolio
posted share price increases during March. There
was one change to the top thirty holdings, following
increased investment in Shanghai International
Airport (“SHIA”), which replaced Ocean Wilsons."
Ocean Wilsons had already dropped to only 1.4% (28 in the top 30) back in the February facsheet.
This one is about the Hansa trust but it talks about Ocean Wilsons: |
thanks for the QD link, useful.For the record have dipped my toes here having had a rather rough ride in a more 'traditional' emerging markets fund where two of the biggest three investments by geography (c 30%) are Chinese and Taiwanese stocks. |
Good trajectory of late.
Now, if this could hold all the way back to 250+p as it was back in 2019 before the Covid troubles, that would be perfect. |
A differentiated appoach: |
(1) Extract from AGM RNS: "The Board has noted that shareholder proxies representing 24.45% of the shares voted ... were against the annual re-election of Ms Susan Hansen. Ms Hansen is also a director of a company associated with the Investment Managers and is therefore not deemed to be independent." At the AGM, a shareholder (not me) pointed out that she had been on the Board for 9 years. The chairman's response was that it was "likely" that an existing Board Member (no name mentioned!!) will not be seeking re-election next year.
(2) Mr Stobart only got an 80.04% YES vote - just 0.04% over the threshold for the trust having to also "defend" him. Maybe he'll be going in 2024?? |
A bit old but only picked up recently from LinkedIn:
UTILICO EMERGING MARKETS TRUST PLC - Investor Presentation |
A bit dated, I only just picked it up.
Nothing new, more about Charles Jillings than UEM. |
It is good to read that UEM is seriously underweight in China compared to the MSCI Emerging Market index: 15.9% vs 32.0%.
The only Chinese position in the Top 10 is now a fund of "unlisted", we used to have China Everbright Greentech Ltd at number 9 back in January. Maybe I am reading too much into this but the geo split in January was 17.8% (and top investment) in China and latest factsheet shows 15.5% (second from top). So, it seems Jillings could be getting slightly colder feet about the ChiComs. |
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