Minutes of the September meeting held on Sunday 12th September 2004 at The Griffin in Plumtree

Present:
Julian Kern, Terry Emmony, Phil Jones, Julie Grundy

Apologies:
Steve Spence, Gordon Moore, Ann Nurse, Mike Arkless, Cynthia Brooke, Di Gluchowski

No Response:
Andrew Smillie, Debbie McDonnell, Dan Robson, Peter Sweeney



Good News
With 12 of our 23 shares in profit, our unit value stood at 90.5p, its highest level since July 2001 (actually 91.3p this morning). We have seen its value increased by 3% since the start of September, 1% greater than the FTSE indices. If you look at the graph on the website (click on "Monthly Valuation", select latest month and at the top of the page click on "Monthly Graph") you can see how we have dramatically outperformed the FTSE100 index since Feb 2003 after almost exactly tracking it between Dec 2001 and Feb 2003.

As with the July valuation everyone in the club is in a profit on their holdings. While a unit value of 90.5p might mislead some people into thinking we have lost money, as the unit value dropped to 60p in Feb 2003, we were all buying units at 60p, so we were getting 1 and 2/3 units for each £1 we invested (at that point). All this means that our average buying price for one of our units is around 86p (each individual member's average will vary slightly), but as the unit value is now higher than the cost we are all making a profit from our investments.

As we don't see our personal profit or shareholding we discussed the possibility of each of us seeing our personal statement once a year, perhaps at the end of the year, and Terry agreed it would be a good idea.

Sales
We reviewed the portfolio, and decided to take some profits.
We sold BAE Systems for 16% profit and Marks and Spencer for 21% profit. As the takeover of M&S has passed we decided to take the profit now, and monitor it, we can always buy back in later.

We had therefore some £2000 available to invest.


Investments
We considered Topps Tiles, Regent Inns, Friends Provident, Carnival Cruises and British Vita Chemicals. Topps Tiles are at their high, Regent Inns have a very High yield and look interesting but we didn't know enough about them to take a gamble. Carnival Cruises were very high value shares and we didn't feel confident enough to invest.
Friends Provident are in the middle of their range with a decent yield, and Life Assurance companies are generally doing well (see Prudential), we felt Friends Provident was a well run company so we invested £1000.
British Vita were tipped in the press, a chemical company having just announced reasonable results, again in its mid price range, with reasonable yield so we invested £1000 in this company, is a sector where we hold no other similar shares.

How do you feel?
While discussing these options we came across a dilemma. Tobacco companies were suggested. Imperial Tobacco and British American Tobacco are doing well over the year and have decent dividends, but we didn't know how all other members felt about investing in tobacco companies. We haven't dealt with moral dilemmas before (in the ExEC that is), but felt we should find out how everyone feels about certain uneasy decisions.
For future reference, please tell me whether there are any companies or sectors that you would object to investing in.

Future
The next meeting will be on 21st November. Julian has kindly offered to host it at his house in Tollerton with the extra incentive of sampling a new range of S&A foods should you need further enticement.
More details closer to the time.


I hope to see you all soon,

Phil