Tag: Downing One VCT

Victoria and Downing One VCT Annual Reports, and Rio Tinto Mea Culpa

With it being all quiet on the financial front, with a lot of people on holiday, I had the time to read a couple of Annual Reports over the weekend. First came Victoria (VCP), a producer of flooring products (carpets and tiles) in which I have a relatively small holding. Chairman Geoff Wilding always has some interesting things to say and their Annual Report is an exemplary model of shareholder enlightenment.

He commences with this statement: “There is an old Yiddish adage which, loosely translated, says “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans”. It is safe to say that when Victoria developed its business plan for 2020/21 at the start of this year, we did not factor in the complete economic shutdown in most of the various countries in which we operate”. He does briefly cover the latest business position but the Annual Report covers the year to the end of March so it is mainly historic data.

It was interesting to read this section: “A core element of our UK growth strategy, made possible due to the scale of our business, is our logistics operation, Alliance Flooring Distribution. 18 months ago, we made the decision to invest heavily in logistics, accepting the consequential temporary loss of some margin, in the belief that our customers – flooring retailers – would highly value reliable on-time delivery of carpet, cut precisely to size for a specific consumer order. This has meant that they can hold less inventory, freeing up cash from their working capital, and devote more space in their stores to point of sale rather than using it to warehouse product, and reduce waste, improving their margins. (Carpet is produced in rolls 25m long. However, houses rarely need exactly a full roll and retailers would invariably be left with a typical leftover 2-3m “short end”, which would be thrown away. In contrast, given our high volume of orders and sophisticated cutting planning software, our wastage is much lower). And this is exactly how it has turned out”.

Going back into history, in 1980 I developed a similar system for Harris Carpets to establish a computer system to optimise their central carpet cutting operations and minimise “remnants” or “short-ends”. This proved to be one of their key competitive advantages. Similar systems have been used by other big carpet retailers and distributors since, but the carpet market is still dominated by smallish local operations so you can see the advantages that Victoria might gain.

The second annual report I read was that of Downing One VCT (DDV1). Apart from a very poor financial performance for the second year running, the report fails to cover several important items.

Firstly there is no information on the length of service of the directors, nor their ages. It is now convention not to report the ages of directors which I consider unfortunate but they should at least state when they joined the board so we can see their length of service. Ages can of course be easily looked up at Companies House – they are 60, 71 and 75 years for the three directors.  Are ages and length of service important? I think they are simply from my experience of boards and their performance.

But the really big omission is that the substantial loss reported of £23.8 million partly included a “Provision for doubtful income” under Other Expenses of £2.1 million in Note 5 to the Accounts. What is that? I cannot spot any explanation in the report. I have sent a request for more information to the company.

Rio Tinto (RIO) published an abject apology this morning for their destruction of a cultural heritage site in Juukan Gorge in Australia. They say “The board review concluded that while Rio Tinto had obtained legal authority to impact the Juukan rockshelters, it fell short of the Standards and internal guidance that Rio Tinto sets for itself, over and above its legal obligations. The review found no single root cause or error that directly resulted in the destruction of the rockshelters. It was the result of a series of decisions, actions and omissions over an extended period of time, underpinned by flaws in systems, data sharing, engagement within the company and with the PKKP, and poor decision-making”. They propose a number of improvements to avoid the problems in future. In the meantime they are knocking off £2.7 million from the possible bonuses under the STIP and LTIP schemes available to CEO J-S Jacques and large amounts from two other senior executives. That should hurt enough I think. 

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson  )

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City of London IT, Equals Interims, Paypoint CEO, Downing One VCT and Parliamentary Pandemonium

Having been away on holiday in the North of England last week, this is a catch up on news that impacted my portfolio.

I received the Annual Report for City of London Investment Trust (CTY) which is one of my most boring holdings. This is large cap equity growth/income trust managed for many years by Job Curtis and I have held since 2011 – it seems longer. Total return last year was 2.7% which beat most of the comparable indices. But a look at the overall return (including dividends) on my holdings in Sharescope shows an annual return of 15.0% which is very pleasing. It has reduced its management overheads to a cost of 0.39% (the “on-going” charge).

It is particularly worthy of note that the Chairman, Philip Remnant, says this in the Annual Report: “In February 2019 the AIC published an updated Code of Governance which largely mirrors the provisions of the UK Corporate Governance Code issued by the FRC save that the strict nine year cap on the Chairman’s tenure contained in the FRC’s code has been disapplied by the AIC. I see no reason why the rules which apply to the length of time which the chairman of an investment company can server should be more relaxed than those that apply to other listed companies, and so I will be stepping down as Chairman during 2020”.

I completely agree with Mr Remnant and have raised this point at AGMs of a number of trusts where directors are permitted to hang on for much too long. The AIC should not pretend that investment trusts are exempt from the UK Corporate Governance Code.

Equals (EQLS), formerly called FairFX, issued their interim results on the 26th September. Revenue was up by 21.4% and Adjusted EBITDA up by 78% but EPS was down. The share price fell, although the Chairman bought some shares soon afterwards.

However as reported on at the AGM (see https://tinyurl.com/y5j58dd6 ) there is a large amount of software development work being capitalised at this company and as expected, it went up in the half year. Another £4.8 million to be exact. That is a very large amount of development work and suggests either a very large team or an expensive one. It does raise doubts in my mind, and possibly others, about the accounts.

Paypoint (PAY) reported a “temporary leadership change” on the 26th September. CEO Patrick Headon is taking a leave of absence to receive treatment for a medical condition and he is expected to be absent for 3 months. The share price barely moved during the week but these kinds of reports which give no details can often conceal worse news. I recall the recent events at Wey Education where Executive Chairman David Massie received some open-heart surgery and subsequently died. Shareholders were not informed of this problem until he resigned and this was a significant problem for the company. I suggest there should be some clear rules developed on when medical incapacity needs to be reported to shareholders, and what level of detail is provided so that investors can judge the risks and possible impacts.

Downing One VCT (DDV1) issued a circular concerning the raising of up to £40 million in additional equity. This is justified so as to increase the size of the company to better cover the fixed running costs and to enable the company to make new investments and diversify its portfolio.

It always surprises me how Venture Capital Trusts can often raise more money even when they have a very patchy performance record. According to the AIC, this VCT achieved a NAV total return of 9.4% over the last 5 years. I won’t be increasing my holding in this company therefore by subscribing for it. However, how should I vote on the fund raising? Should I support it on the basis of pulling in more suckers to support the overhead costs? Or oppose it on the basis that giving more cash to the manager will hardly improve performance in the short term and simply give more fees to a poorly performing fund manager?

They are also proposing to introduce a Performance Incentive Fee – 20% of gains subject to a hurdle rate. But performance fees do not improve performance so I always oppose them. I hope other shareholders will do the same.

It was of course difficult to get away from events in Parliament and Brexit issues while on holiday. But I did manage to read a book in the hotel library – The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon – just a part of it of course as it’s a multi-volume book. Gibbon was a Member of Parliament in the 1770s but disliked the place which he called “Pandemonium”. Nothing changes it seems.

As regards the decision of the Supreme Court over Prorogation, having read the full Judgement of the Court, I do not find it particularly surprising. People do tend to jump to conclusions about court judgements, often declaring they are biased, when a full reading often shows that the judges are not so perverse as imagined. I fear the advice of the Attorney General on prorogation was defective in that it cannot be purely at the whim of the prime minister to suspend Parliament for a long period of time and without good reason.

It was also unnecessary as Boris Johnson has other options to ensure that Brexit takes place on the 31st October as he wishes. Most investors are surely now of the same view of many of the public that we need to get this matter settled. Delaying resolution by a further extension of the Brexit date or by another referendum would simply cause more uncertainty and difficulty for businesses and for investors. Businesses cannot plan adequately and the value of the pound is dropping while investors are nervous. None of these things are helpful to investment returns.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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