Playing the Green Energy Theme - Read this 1000 Times Simon Thompson is a British investment banker and business executive.
SMALL COMPANIES
Simon Thompson reveals his Bargain Shares for 2021.
CGI is his largest holding & CGI added Xebec in its portfolio .
The idea behind our annual Bargain Shares Portfolio is simple. It’s to invest in companies where the true worth of the assets is not reflected in the share price, usually for some temporary reason, but where we can reasonably expect that it will be in due course.
Our portfolios are based on the investment ideas of Benjamin Graham.
As usual, the hidden gems we uncover in the stock market are found amongst the under researched small and micro-cap segment. Targeting smaller cap companies has reaped handsome rewards over the years, so justifying our long-term bias, but it works both ways as companies that disappoint can be punished more heavily given the less liquid nature of these shares. The flipside is that when we get it right, expect substantial long-term outperformance as our track record shows.
And there is no doubt that this investment strategy has stood the test of time with every single one of the last five annual portfolios I selected having outperformed. Some of the share price gains have been mightily impressive.
Interestingly, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity has been a regular feature of all my portfolios, as predators, attracted by the asset backing on offer, run their slide rule over the numbers. It’s understandable as in some cases valuations are so depressed that we are getting all the fixed assets in the price for free, thus offering the substantial “margin of safety” Benjamin Graham was aiming for.
So, once again, I have run the rule over around 1,500 listed companies on Aim and the main market of the London Stock Exchange to come up with a portfolio of companies where the asset backing should be strong enough to overcome any short-term trading difficulties and, in time, reward our loyal following of long-term value investors.
Market makers could easily raise their offer quotes for smaller companies by 10 per cent plus on publication day. However, prices and spreads have demonstrated a habit of drifting back over subsequent weeks, so please be disciplined in your share buying as these investments are for the long-term as the strong outperformance of the 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 portfolios clearly highlight. It is also important to buy a decent number of our recommendations to diversify risk.
Nearly a century ago, former Prime Minister of Canada, Arthur Meighen, helped create what is today North America's second oldest closed-end fund, Canadian General Investments (CGI). Shares in the company have been dual-listed on both the Toronto and London Stock Exchanges since 1995.
Playing the green energy theme
One of CGI’s new positions is Xebec Adsorption (CA:XBC)