Speaker 0:
Hello. I'm Claire Long, head of investment Trust at Premier. Might here with me today is Nick Greenwood, manager of the Might and Opportunities Trust, to give us an update on the trust and what he sees as its prospects for the next few months. So before we go on to some questions, could you just remind us of the basic premise of my

Speaker 1:
Yeah, my is a special situations fund. It looks for unloved and overlooked investment trusts and bear in mind that, um, the buying and selling of investment trust takes PRI price at the level where buyers and sellers meet in in in in the market. Which means that what you price you pay can differ a lot from the underlying value of the portfolio.

Speaker 0:
Yes, I see. Um, and so why has the investment trust sector had such a tough time over the last year or so?

Speaker 1:
Well, there's been a lot of new assurance of, um funds that pay a decent yield and look back in just a year or two. I mean, we were suffering from yield starvation. It's very difficult to to to generate income for investors. Um, but now you can get um, decent income from conventional sources, such as guilt, which has removed the demand for a lot of these funds. And, you know, we we've seen discounts become extremely wide in parts of the market,

Speaker 0:
so yield starvation. You mean lack of

Speaker 1:
interest rates that were virtually zero for a long period of time. So it's very difficult for investors and savers to to generate any income from their from their investments that's now changed. And that has actually reduced the demand for income bearing investment trusts, which means they now trade well below the value of their underlying portfolio.

Speaker 0:
And so where is the the the catalyst to change from here?

Speaker 1:
Well, I think that there is a new audience. You know what we call the self directed investor, you know, the the individuals making their own decisions. They're still very interested in investment trusts. And therefore, you know, marketing to a different audience will help. Certainly, buying back for some shares for cancellation will help, Um, because that reduces the oversupply situation in the market. And also many trusts may just decide that there isn't enough interest. There isn't enough support,

Speaker 1:
and they either I merge or go into an orderly wind down and hand money back to shareholders. All of this sort of reduces the oversupply situation that we've got.

Speaker 0:
I see. And I mean another aspect. You make much of the diversification that my go offers. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Speaker 1:
Well closed ended funds investment trust, um, funds that have got a fixed number of shares in issue, um

Speaker 1:
can actually invest in, you know, much longer term assets. Um, you know, asset classes like forestry or shipping, um, or secondhand life policies would be very difficult to operate as an open-ended fund with where investors are allowed to buy or sell their their holdings within 24 hours. You know, it'd be very difficult to chop down half a forest and sell it to make a a 24 hour redemption on A on A on an open ended forestry fund. So, um,

Speaker 1:
there's a you know, a vast array of asset classes you just can't get access to, um in open end funds such as O or or unit trusts.

Speaker 0:
So the the beauty of my is because of your long term approach. You can you can hold AAA wide variety

Speaker 1:
and and also my itself is a closed ended fund. It's an investment trust, and therefore we can hold on to some of these investments until it's right to sell rather being forced into selling at, you know, an un unattractive price because you're having to meet a redemption

Speaker 0:
and in terms of, you know, the different assets that you might consider. I think in the past you've held uranium stocks, biotech stocks. Are they still featuring in the portfolio?

Speaker 1:
Both still feature in the portfolio. Um,

Speaker 1:
uranium is, you know, obviously, um, key to nuclear power.

Speaker 1:
You know, it's coming back. It's it's enjoying a renaissance. Um, but, you know, a lot of uranium mines, uh, close to expiry. The price has been so low since the accident at Fukushima in 2011 that, you know, no one's really been looking for uranium. And, you know, we can see a shortage that will squeeze up the price in, um in in in the coming year or two. In the case of biotech, um, it's suffered a AAA real bear market.

Speaker 1:
You know, many biotech companies are now trading below the cash they got in the balance sheet. Um, and you know that effectively values their businesses at zero. And obviously their business is worth a lot more than that,

Speaker 0:
just to just to clarify bear market

Speaker 1:
a bear market. Um, it's it's It's a market where prices are generally falling.

Speaker 0:
Yes, I see. As opposed to a bull market,

Speaker 1:
bull markets are more fun.

Speaker 0:
Um, and I mean, I think you recently added a renewables trust to the portfolio, which is not something you've held. No,

Speaker 1:
no, I mean renewables trust until recently have traded on premiums. We've managed to buy a, um, a kila, which is a European renewables trust at a substantial discount. Um, what the situation is chucking up, um, is that while there's a lack of demand for these vehicles, there's a lot of demand for wind farms and solar plants.

Speaker 1:
So, you know, there's there's a big difference between you know, what these assets could fetch on the open market. Um, and you know what they're trading at in the market at the moment,

Speaker 0:
OK? And I mean, you mentioned, uh, premiums and discounts. I mean, my itself trade trades at a narrow discount. Why? Why is

Speaker 1:
that? Well, when we see, um a build up on overhang of shares in the market. We we tend to try and buy them in before it has an effect on the share price. And after a while, the market gets used to that, that taking place. And And therefore, even though, um, we haven't bought that many shares in recently, uh, you know, the we tend to trade at around our net asset value, which is the the value of the underlying portfolio.

Speaker 0:
Yes, Yes, I see so plenty of opportunities there. And you feel that, uh, the trust remains a the good the right vehicle to exploit those opportunities.

Speaker 1:
Yeah. I mean, it's probably as good a vehicle you as you could find in the current environment for exploiting these excessive discounts that we've got.

Speaker 0:
Thank you very much, Nick. And thank you for listening. If you've got any further questions or need further information, please visit the trust website. W w w dot my go p l c dot com