Pinned valuation:
Scroll down for latest update.
April 30th 2019 Pre-Tax NTA: $1.2039 (ex-div).
April 30th 2019 Post-Tax NTA: $1.1769 (ex-div).
6 months on:
October 31st 2019 Pre-Tax NTA: $1.2522 (ex-div).
October 31st 2019 Post-Tax NTA: $1.2264 (ex-div).
October 31st NTA after tax but before tax on unrealised gains: $1.2471 (ex-div). NTA increase of just over 4% in 6 months, so around 8% pa (annualised). SP has been rising steadily since June. I hold WLE shares.
November 30, 2019: Pre-tax NTA for WLE was $1.3016, and the share price has remained 3 to 4 cents below that level for the past couple of weeks (to December 27th 2019). I spoke to Matt Haupt and Oscar Oberg during the November roadshow when they visited Adelaide and Oscar (who manages WAM, WAA, WAX & WMI, but not WLE or WGB, which are managed by Matt and Catriona) told me that he has been buying WLE and WGB shares himself ahead of his own LICs because they were both trading at discounts to their NTA and his LICs were trading either at premiums or at NTA - or close enough to NTA as to clearly NOT be bargains. He told me that just like Geoff Wilson himself, he (Oscar) likes to buy $1 worth of assets for less than $1, and you can still do that with WLE and WGB. I hold both of them.
22-June-2020: Update: WLE pre-tax NTA was $1.15 on May 30, 2020. Share price was $1.08 then, and is now a little lower at $1.065. WLE had 15.6 cps in their profit reserve - enough for 2.5 years of dividends. Cash = 8.9%. After WAM Global (WGB), WAM Leaders (WLE) has the next best discount to NTA of the 6 LICs currently managed by Wilson Asset Management (aka WAM Funds). Their flagship fund, WAM Capital (WAM) is trading at an NTA-premium of over 20% and WAM Research (WAX) has a NTA-premium in their SP that is between 35% and 40%, which is huge! I'm not going to pay those sort of premiums, particularly for WAM Capital (WAM) which has less than one half-year dividend in their profit reserve. WAX has a much better profit reserve but a they're also at a much higher premium-to-NTA.
The best value is currently WGB, then WLE, then WMI. I now hold all three (I sold my WAM today, and bought some WMI and more WGB - I already had a decent position in WLE).
BAF is also very interesting, and will be even more interesting when it becomes WAM Alternatives instead of Blue Sky Alternatives Access Fund - and their ticker code gets changed - probably to WAL (because WAA and WAF are both taken already). I also hold BAF shares.
Update: 21-Dec-2020: WLE's pre-tax NTA as at 30-Nov-2020 was $1.2896, so $1.29 is my new valuation for them. I do NOT currently hold WLE shares, having taken profits after the gap between the NTA and the SP closed up. In other words, I bought them at a substantial discount to NTA, then sold them at close to NTA, when the NTA was actually significantly higher as well. WLE's top 20 holdings (in alphabetical order) at 30-Nov-2020 were: ANZ, BHP, CBA, CSL, FMG, IAG, NAB, OZL, QAN, QBE, RHC, RIO, S32, SCG, SGR, STO, TCL, TLS, WBC, WOW.
18-Mar-2021: Update: 28-Feb-2021 before tax NTA = $1.37. After tax NTA = $1.31. Share price at the end of Feb was $1.43, and is now $1.52 (on 18-Mar-2021), so WLE has moved from a small discount to NTA to now being priced with a small premium to NTA in the share price. Nothing like the rediculous premium that WAX is trading at (+38.7% premium to NTA at end of Feb) or the more modest premiums of WAM (+14%) or WMI (+16.8%), but still at a small premium. Even WAM Global (WGB) was trading at a small premium (of +4.8%) to NTA at the end of Feb, and I can't think of any other globally focussed LIC (an ASX-listed investment company that invests in companies outside of Australia) that is currently trading at an NTA premium, so that's quite a feat!
In fact, the only LIC that WAM Funds manage that was NOT trading at a premium to NTA at the end of Feb 2021 was WAM Alternative Assets (WMA), which had a before tax NTA of $1.10 and closed the month at $0.995, being a 9.5% discount to NTA, which is a lot less than the big discount they were trading at prior to WAM Funds taking over the management, and that was fairly recent, so in time they may also end up trading at an NTA premium as well. However, they also might not, because of the very nature of the assets they hold, and the market's perception of the margin of error that may need to be factored in to their valuations of those assets. A lot of WMA's assets aren't trading daily on an exchange like company shares are, so the valuations are a little harder to work out, and for that reason it is quite possible that a 10% discount - or thereabouts - might be as good as it gets. We shall see.
But back to WLE - WAM Leaders - Matt and John (and their team) are doing a great job with this fund, and the share price reflects the underlying portfolio performance. It's all good. Wish I was still holding them actually...
04-Aug-2024: Update:
WLE will probably release their July report tomorrow (Monday 5th August 2024) however I'll take a stab and say their before-tax NTA is probably worth around $1.39, based on their NTA at the end of June (see here: WLE-June-2024-Investment-Update.PDF) of 133.60 cents ($1.336) plus the market (the ASX200 index or XJO.asx) rose +4.17% in July (from 7,768 close on June 30th to 8,092 close on July 31st), so 133.60 cents + 4.17% = 139.17 cents or $1.39.
WLE is now my largest position in my largest real money portfolio, with 100,000 WLE shares held in that portfolio, bought at $1.27 two Friday's ago, 26-July-2024. I like their dividend yield and the fact that they've outperformed their benchmark index over 3 years, 5 years, 7 years and since inception (before fees), and have paid more in dividends than people would have received by investing a similar amount in an ASX200 tracker (ETF). They also have a healthy profit reserve with more than 3 years' worth of dividends in there. They have also raised their dividends every single year since inception. The dividend yield at my buy price of $1.27 (and they closed on Friday only half a cent above that, at $1.275) is 7.24% plus franking, so over 10% when grossed up to include those franking credits. This is based on WLE paying a 4.6 cps final div, the same as their interim div, so 9.2 cps/year.
WLE have underperformed the index over the past year, hence the premium to NTA came out of their share price and they have traded at a small discount to NTA, which is why I have been attracted to them now, that and the dividend yield. But they have outperformed over all periods from 3 years upwards and their profit reserve allows them to maintain or even increase dividends even when they have a bad year.
So, the reasons I'm back in are:
- The dividend yield of over 7%, or 10% grossed up, and all fully franked dividends.
- The discount to NTA. It's small, but it's better than paying a premium.
- The exposure to large caps that I don't follow closely, so happy to offload that part of my market exposure to Matt Haupt at WAM Funds as he has a track record of beating the index and building up good profits and paying out top notch dividends.
I also hold WGB (their global LIC) for (a) global sharemarket exposure with active management and (b) good rising dividends, fully franked, with an even healthier profit reserve that covers over 5 years worth of div's: See here: WGB-June-2024-Investment-Update.PDF.
So - basically both bought at discounts to NTA (/NAV), both paying good above-market fully franked and rising dividends (WLE's yield is higher than WGB's yield however) and both give me exposure to market exposure that are not my forte - i.e. Australian large caps and overseas listed companies.
I do not hold any other LICs. In terms of WAM Funds other LICs, I don't like paying premiums to NTA, plus WAM Capital (WAM) has bugger all in their profit reserve so will continue to struggle to maintain their dividends let alone grow them - they haven't raised their dividends since 2018 (so have only managed to maintain it at the same level for the past 6 years) - and WAX have run out of franking credits and had to reduce their franking percentage.
So that's why I like WLE right now.
https://www.asx.com.au/investors/investment-tools-and-resources/asx-on-demand
WAM Leaders: Investing in large cap companies with compelling fundamentals
Recorded in July, posted to YouTube two days ago, on Friday 2nd August 2024.
14-Nov-2024: Update:
WAM Global (WGB) LIC October 2024 Report
Being overweight Resources and underweight the big Banks hurt WLE's NTA in October, which finished the month at 136.29 cps, 5 cents lower than the 141.55 cps they closed September at. That means that with a $1.37 share price at close of trade on October 31st, there was no discount-to-NTA in their share price as there had been for the previous few months.
The NTA drop isn't welcome, but their positioning is one of the reasons I hold them - I do want them to be overweight resources and underweight banks, so the NTA drop wasn't unexpected.
They are currently my second largest real money portfolio position (behind LYL) outside of my SMSF, due to that dividend yield - circled in green above - however they go ex-dividend on Monday (18th Nov) for their 4.6 cps FF div to be paid on 28th Nov, so I expect their share price to fall next week.
I'll likely be rotating some money out of WLE and into some direct shares either next week or soon-ish afterwards, depending on what their SP does. If they drop by substantially more than the grossed up value of that dividend then I'll probably wait before selling any; I'm not fussed having money tied up in WLE (or their stablemate WGB) because it's like an ETF except with active management and higher fees, and they've raised their dividend every single year since the fund's inception (WGB is a different exposure - to global shares, but they also have a good dividend history).
Here's WLE's dividend history:
...and with over 32 cents/share in their profit reserve, I expect WLE to continue that trend regardless of their actual portfolio performance. That's one of the main advantages of a LIC (listed investment company): their profit reserves and their ability to bank some profits and smooth their dividends using those reserves, and maintain or even increase dividends in times of poor potfolio performance.
Disc: Holding for the large cap exposure - with less exposure to the banks and more to resources - and also for the income.
No longer holding WAM Leaders (WLE) - sold them on the open yesterday (Monday 18th Nov), the day they went ex-dividend, which is why the share price dropped so much on the day (because they went ex-div, not because I sold out). I was going to hold at least some of them (was always planning to trim the position between divs) but decided to sell the lot instead of trimming because of the falling Australian dollar and the liklihood of the Aussie sharemarket underperforming global sharemarkets next year if commodity prices don't rise, i.e. if China doesn't stimulate their economy a LOT.
I don't think we're going to see enough increased Chinese demand for our metals and minerals to offset the headwinds we are likely to face next year with a falling dollar and the fall-out from the likely US-China trade war that Trump's tariffs on Chinese imports into the USA is going to kick off.
Copper demand might not rise as fast as people were expecting, and lithium will likely remain oversupplied, so prices will likely remain lower than most Aussie lithium miners' cost of production. Nickel is unlikely to rise because the Indonesians have so much of the market now and are producing it cheaper than we can now, so we can't compete on either price or quality with nickel it seems. Cobalt has been smashed and is being used in less batteries now, so demand for cobalt is likely to go lower, especially because nearly all the world's cobalt is produced as a byproduct of copper and nickel production, so as long as people are producing copper, and they always will, there will always be cobalt production regardless of demand. Zinc has recovered a little, but it's usually mined along with lead and those battery metals could face some reduced demand as a result of Trump's policies; he's not about increasing the push for renewable energy and transport electrification; he wants to produce more oil ("Drill Baby, Drill!") and back away from any agreements that target greenhouse gas reduction and halting or reversing climate change. Uranium is one that will likely rise under Trump, especially now that Russia has banned uranium exports to the USA, although that could well be a negotiating tactic in the shorter term. But Australia's economy doesn't rise and fall on uranium prices and demand.
Anyway, I'm more bullish on global markets than the Australian market for 2025, subject to change - as anything could happen (and probably will), and while I will still invest the bulk of my investable capital in ASX-listed companies, I'm going to want to be very picky about where I invest, so a broad-based Australian large-cap LIC like WLE isn't the exposure that I'm after while Trump is POTUS again. Particularly as Matt Haupt (WLE's lead portfolio manager) has stated that they are overweight materials and underweight banks, and I'm not sure if that's the best positioning right now - I'm personally underweight banks and also underweight large cap miners - other than Northern Star Resources (NST).
And NST is a gold miner, and gold miners don't move in sync with other metals, as seen in today's sector performance table:
Resources up 0.33%, Metals and Mining up +0.11%, and the Gold sector was up +3.66%. I reckon TechOne's (TNE's) outstanding result today and +10% share price rise was a contributor to IT being today's second best performing sector today (behind Gold), with IT being up +3.12%, not bad for a single day.
WLE's stablemate, WAM Global (WGB) goes ex-div tomorrow (Wednesday 20th Nov) and I hold 40,000 WGB, and I'm not planning to trim or exit WGB tomorrow like I exited WLE yesterday, because I like the majority of WGB's top 20 holdings, which are all ex-Australia (mostly US companies with 4 European companies):
That's how I'm going to get my overseas market exposure - through an actively managed global fund - rather than a passive ETF with lower fees - because I think 2025 is likely to be a year when passive does not outperform, so those higher fees for active management may well be money well spent, in my opinion.
But that's WAM Global - and this note is more to mention that I no longer hold WAM Leaders (WLE) here or anywhere else - they went from my second largest real money position to zero exposure yesterday - I rotated that money yesterday morning into GMD (up +4.76% today) and more RMS (up +3.52% today) after the recent pullback in Aussie gold miners' share prices on the back of the Trump win in the US and the gold price initially falling and the A$ also falling as the US$ rose.
My thinking was that the past two week period of gold price weakness - which was magnified across our Aussie gold sector - was more a buy-the-dip opportunity than the end of the gold bull run. Today's very positive gold sector movement doesn't mean I'm right, but I'm right today at least, and I'll take that.