Simon Knott steps down from Rights and Issues IT
First things first. As a relatively new subscriber to the news letter can I stress how good it is to get a monthly hard copy. It is much easier to read and file than the web-only alternatives. Please do not change the monthly format.
Now to my question. As a long-term shareholder of Rights and Issues Investment Trust, I was sad to see that Simon Knott is stepping down after 39 years as investment manager. It must be one of the last self-managed investment trusts, and although its recent performance has been nothing to write home about over his tenure the trust's NAV has increased by 1037% compared with the FTSE All-share's 610%.
He has run a highly concentrated portfolio of often un-loved midcap stocks and has been much more patient than I would have been in sticking with them over the years. Some of his investment choices, such as Renold, the chain company, have never lived up to expectations but others such as Treatt and Spirax Sarco Engineering have turned out very well.
Management of the trust is being taken over by Jupiter Unit Trust Managers with Dan Nickols being the lead fund manager. Would be interested in knowing what people make of the new manager and whether this trust, which has never gone out of its way to promote its profile, will benefit from being part of a bigger investment group.
I too have held this trust for decades, and my clients too. Jupiter are more open-ended players and I am not sure why it is going to them at all. The tender offer is rather annoying as it will most likely be filled by investors hedging their bets and won't let investors out fully, if that's what they want. There will then be a technical overhang of "sellers" and this will make it difficult (undervalued pricing) to sell the remaining 90%. Selling now at 14% discount may be beneficial, or it may not, I just can't tell and am angry I have been placed in this position. Just to clarify, I am not keen on going forward with this change.