BRITISH SMALLER COMPANIES VCT PLC (BSV)

BRITISH SMALLER COMPANIES VCT PLC (BSV)

Blog posts

VCT Investor Workshop Report

The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. Today (1st December) I attended a VCT Investor Workshop on-line run by the British Smaller Companies VCTs (BSV and BSC). These are two of the better performing generalist VCTs managed by YFM. It was a disappointing event. There were presentations from investee companies Unbiased and SharpCloud which gave a general overview of the businesses but no financial information – such as sales, profits and what the ...

What Were the Real Returns from VCTs over 24 Years?

I wrote a previous blog article on the merits of Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) but I thought it worthwhile to actually do some analysis of the capital and dividend...

British Smaller Companies VCT Offer

It’s that time of year when share subscription offers for Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) tend to be launched. One of the first is that for the British Smaller Companies VCT (BSV). This one that has shown a relatively good performance for a generalist VCT – share price total return of 225 over ten years according to the AIC compared with a sector performance of 136. It also has a high dividend yield and a narrow discount to NAV. However I have ...

Performance Fees – Don’t You Just Hate Them?

I mentioned in a previous blog post the result of a performance incentive fee for the manager at British Smaller Companies VCT (BSV) which resulted in total fees of 6.9% of net assets last year. Another similar example is that of Proven VCT (PVN) who managed to do even better at 8.8% of assets for the same reason. This problem of excessive and perverse performance fees has recently been covered in the FCA’s “Asset Management Market Study” and in a very good ...

Enormous Management Fees at British Smaller Companies VCT

British Smaller Companies VCT (BSV) has been one of the more successful Venture Capital Trusts in terms of fund performance – it is managed by YFM. The NAV Total Return has been 106.9 over the last ten years according to the AIC (i.e. investors have doubled their money), beating the sector performance for generalist VCTs of only 64. With high, tax-free dividends being paid, investors have probably been happy. But back in 2009 the managers performance incentive fee was changed to be ...

Undisclosed Fees and AGMs

It's interesting what you can learn at Annual General Meetings, or from ShareSoc reports on them, even if you don't attend in person. One of the recent news items in the financial press was about the disclosure of what private equity fund managers have received in "carried interest". It transpired that two very large US pension funds, Calpers and Calstrs, had no idea how much their fund managers had earned in this way over many years on top of their normal fees. ...

How to turn 9.5% into 2.4% – British Smaller Companies VCT

British Smaller Companies VCT (BSV) have recently circulated their Annual Report  prior to the AGM on the 29th July. They had a good year according to the Chairman's report with the value of the investment portfolio increasing by 9.5% over the year.  But the total return (net asset value plus dividends increased by only 2.4% (a rise of 4.8p to 197.5p since launch). How can that be? The reason is simply that costs went up 56%. That includes investment advisors fees up ...

Whitewash at British Smaller Companies VCT

British Smaller Companies VCT has called a General Meeting to approve resolutions to rectify past accounting errors that resulted in technically illegal payments of dividends and share buy-backs back in 2006-2008. In essence the company did not have the reserves required. So these "whitewash" resolutions as they are called ask shareholders to waive any claims against the directors for these errors, and claims against shareholders who received the dividends when they should not have. This follows similar whitewash resolutions that were ...

Top performing VCTs and performance fees.

Yesterday the AIC published a note on the “dividend stars” and “strongest performers” among Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) now that such companies have been in existence for 18 years. In terms of total dividends paid out since launch ProVen Growth & Income came top with Baronsmead VCT in second place. But investors should bear in mind that some VCTs pay dividends out of the capital of the trust which sometimes just means that investors are simply having the money they invested ...

AGM Reports

British Smaller Companies VCT AGM 2020

I “attended” the British Smaller Companies VCT Annual General Meeting today via Zoom. This was yet another variant on the practice of virtual AGMs. But there were apparently about 30 people connected which is more than they normally get of shareholders at their AGMs. It was well managed with no significant technical problems, unlike others recently I have attended. Shareholders could vote for or against the resolutions on the day by using a Zoom Vote facility to give an instant poll result ...

British Smaller Companies VCT Plc (BSV) AGM Report 2015

British Smaller Companies VCT (BSV) yesterday (29th July 2015) held their annual general meeting in central London at midday. There were more shareholders present than prior years with at least 12 turning up, and with the board plus representatives from the Fund manager (YFM Equity partners), the room started to look a little packed when the meeting started. Some figures for the 2014-2015 year are as follows: dividends paid in the year 8p, equating to a yield of 9% (which is of ...

British Smaller Companies VCT (BVT) AGM Report 2014 – whitewashed again

A general meeting of British Smaller Companies VCT was held yesterday (13/1/2014) to pass resolutions to rectify past accounting errors that resulted in technically illegal payments of dividends and share buy-backs back in 2006-2008. In essence the company did not have the reserves required. So these "whitewash" resolutions, as they are commonly called, asked shareholders to waive any claims against the directors for these errors, and claims against shareholders who received the dividends when they should not have. This follows similar ...

British Smaller Companies VCT (BSV) AGM Report 2013

British Smaller Companies (BSV) is a Venture Capital Trust with a moderately good long term performance record – 4.3% per annum total return since formation in 1996 according to Allenbridge, and with a current yield of 7.8% according the AIC (tax free dividends in this case of course). The main issue at this company is a management incentive performance fee based on dividends paid out. This is what I wrote to the Chairman, Helen Sinclair, back in July 2012, prior to the ...