Annual 'Meet the Fund Managers' Seminar
13th November 2007
The third annual Snowdonia Fund VIP Day seminar took place at St. Asaph, on the 12th November 2007.
In attendance were 150 investors in one or more of the Snowdonia funds, representing around 7% of all investors.
The morning and afternoon sessions were in the same format, and saw Stuart Goldsmith of Ketton Securities chair a panel of all four Snowdonia Fund Managers. Stuart is very experienced and respected in the investment management industry, and sits on the boards of several Investment Trusts.
All four funds were represented by their lead managers: David Hambidge and Alex Ross of Premier Fund Managers discussed the Snowdonia Income and Snowdonia Property funds respectively. David Oakes (Mercater Capital Management) and Sanjay Rijhsinghani (UBS Wealth Management (UK)) answered
Stuart ’s questions on Snowdonia Balanced and Snowdonia Growth.
The hour long question and answer session was introduced by the Chairman of Buckles Holdings, David Owen.
All four managers responded to questions on their funds’ performances, the economic outlook, and their trading activity within the last year.
David Hambidge (Snowdonia Income) described the difficulty of keeping up with the FTSE All-Share in an environment led by low-yielding stocks such as miners. There is a balance to be struck between income and capital appreciation.
The Snowdonia Balanced Fund (David Oakes) has maintained high weightings in a small number of core UK equity funds, and the manager explained why he has high conviction in these particular funds.
Alex Ross (Snowdonia Property) explained the reasons behind the sector-wide fall in quoted property vehicles since the Spring. His fund was the best performing Property Fund in the rising market to April 2007, and has been the best performing, in relative terms, in the subsequent downturn. Despite this, the fund has seen a double digit fall in value since the last VIP Day seminar, which Alex believes is down to sentiment, not fundamentals.
The Snowdonia Growth Fund has enjoyed strong performance since the “credit crunch” volatility over the summer, and Sanjay Rijhsinghani detailed the trading activity that has caused this. His purchase of three overseas funds, two of which were Investment Trusts at discounts to their Net Asset Value (NAV), in August 2007 was funded by a sale of Gold.
After the formal panel session concluded, all Managers were available for one-to-one discussions with investors, and were kept busy by a steady stream of clients.
The next VIP Day seminar, to which all investors with holdings in the Snowdonia Fund will be invited, will take place next November.
