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Investment Trust Insider: Why there may be no point meeting managers
Markets
by James Carthew on Feb 05, 2013 at 00:01
So do face-to-face meetings with companies make a difference? It was definitely something we used to attach great importance to at M&G.
One thing I noticed then, though – and this is the dim and distant past, so you can take it with a pinch of salt – was that meetings with smaller companies were much more valuable than meetings with larger ones.
The larger companies tended to arrive with slick pre-prepared presentations they were reluctant to deviate from. The best meetings were the ones in which we could abandon the presentation and delve more deeply into the areas we were interested in.
Mundy’s portfolio is heavily weighted to larger companies and he said at the conference that he does not invest in smaller companies: ‘It is not an area we are good at so we do not bother with them.’
I will leave Atkinson aside as NAIT’s track record is a bit short, but Darwall’s portfolio is also dominated by large caps. Both Mundy and Darwall are running focused 40-odd stock portfolios (I think this is often a sign of a good manager as it means they have courage in their convictions). So perhaps Darwall is just good at getting the managers of these companies to open up to him.
For Huang, the close contact her analysts have with management is essential for identifying those companies that may be being less than honest in their accounts. As the litany of Chinese companies that reversed into US cash shells and turned out to be frauds showed, having boots on the ground that can meet the management and kick the tyres can make a real difference in markets such as China.
China’s credentials
The trust I bought today was JP Morgan Chinese. (I missed the bottom in this – early September 2012, around the time I wrote the article suggesting it might be a good time to buy it!) But I thought Huang presented a convincing argument at the conference that the uptick in Chinese share prices, which has been driven by a recovery in valuations from oversold levels, should continue as earnings start to recover.
Now that the hiatus of the leadership change is behind us, the government can focus more closely on the economy and the well-publicised problems such as non-performing loans and the wealth management products, some of which are definitely dodgy, are ‘known problems’ that they can tackle.
Growth may not return to previous levels, but a steady 8%-9% will serve investors well. Performance has been held back a little by their weighting in A shares, but Huang thinks retail investors may start to flood back to this market. The discount is still attractive, especially relative to Fidelity China.
James Carthew is a director of Sapient Research
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by Dylan Lobo on May 16, 2013 at 16:17
2 comments so far. Why not have your say?
Badders
Feb 05, 2013 at 14:59
I have always found that you can learn lots about their competition and rather less about the company you are meeting.
report thisPCIAM
Feb 12, 2013 at 13:12
Tells me much about Mundy's inter-personal skills compared to those of Alex Darwall. I guess I don't need to insist on a meeting with him after all.
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