Speaker 0:
In the 16 years that that I've been working in the industry, I think there's been quite a big shift towards investors and farm managers needing to provide more transparency to clients. And of course, part of that was to do with changing regulation like RDR back in 2012.

Speaker 0:
And part of that, I think, has come because of been an increasing number of consultants in our industry helping out institutional investors. Um, and I think it's also been catalysed by events such as Woodford, which has called for greater demands of transparency from fund management groups.

Speaker 0:
So it was really important to me when I joined Premier my, uh just over two years ago that at the outset we started with really best in class, um, transparent literature. And so that was why I wanted to write the owner's manual,

Speaker 0:
which, you know, sets out, Um, as I started, uh, what it is I believe in, um, from a philosophy point of view, it sets out the process, and it should be the sort of document that holds the test of time for for decades, um, to to come. Um, and the annual letter was was an extension of that and ability to provide an update to to investors.

Speaker 0:
I think the annual letter has got a couple of objectives. Um, the first is it was the sort of letter that I would want to read if I was an investor in the fund. I I'm an investor in the fund. Um, but if I wasn't also running it and I think in that respect, it does a couple of of simple things, which is to set out, um, what we have been doing

Speaker 0:
in the year buys and sells are, um uh, What's been driving? Um, the performance, uh, of of the fund. Um, but it goes a little bit further than that as well. And details. Uh, it is a recap on on the process. The things that that we believe are the key value drivers. Um, and it links what we've been doing with the outcome for investors.

Speaker 0:
What we've tried to to to go beyond and show, um is some of our our current thinking our our outlook and particularly a spotlight on why we think the UK market is so exciting right now

Speaker 0:
for me, I think it's it's really important that we follow a similar format because I want investors to see that progression through time. Um, the the the the building up of evidence, if you like behind the philosophy and process. And so in that respect, you you'll expect that quite a few things will stay the same the way we present, um, the performance

Speaker 0:
the way that we show you, Um, the three key things that that we think, um, evidence that we are doing what we said we do, Um, and that is that we show the whole portfolio so you can see every position in the fund. You can see the the position, size and and where we think it fits in in the portfolio According to these four repeating patterns of of success that we look at.

Speaker 0:
And the second piece of evidence you can see is the, um, uh, the funds holdings according to their dividend yield. And that is because we believe and and we wrote about this in in the, um, first annual letter last year that, um, investments in what we call the income sweet spot. Things with a dividend yield of of 2 to 8% offer the best. Um, long term total return prospects. And so you can see from that histogram that that's where we're focusing our attention.

Speaker 0:
And then the third piece of evidence is the turnover. Because we think as long term investors, we should be able to evidence that to our, um, investors, but through, um uh, this turnover figure, um, which you should, you know, expect to be in line with the sort of investment horizon that we're thinking about 3 to to 5 years. So those are the things that are gonna stay consistent, you know? What will we change as the years go by? You know, no doubt. Um, there will be fluctuations in in the

Speaker 0:
and market conditions, but I think the key is that the process should is is designed sorry to stay unchanged through different market conditions that the the the philosophy investing in quality at a reasonable price can do well in lots of different market environments. Um, the philosophy investing in the income sweet spot things with, you know, in that offer, that dividend yield that I talked about, um can survive in lots of different market environments.

Speaker 0:
So I think you know one thing which I think is is refreshing is that it's It's a really best in class, um, portfolio. Um, and it seeks to be quite different to, um to to the underlying um index. Um, and I think that's important. I think in the past, um, the fund management industry

Speaker 0:
could provide products which simply gave people access to the index. And, of course, today, with with index trackers, you know that that's not something that that we can, you know, charge fees on Really, it it is. It's really important that we value add, I suppose, is what I'm trying to say. So for me, the idea of running a portfolio that was just 40 to 50 holdings and a real kind of best ideas fund,

Speaker 0:
Um and indeed, you know, something really out in the owner's manual Is that at it from a target weight point of view, we don't have position sizes with the target weight of of less than 1% because everything in the portfolio is there to deliver total return. Everything's there to deliver income. Um, so I think that's probably the the the sort of the first thing to mention. I think the second point is about time horizon and

Speaker 0:
trying to align How I as a fund manager, think about my investments with how a client would think if they had access to all the the knowledge that I have and the time that I have to make those decisions themselves. You know it. It's about taking their time horizon and implementing it in my process. And I think perhaps the fund management industry of old, um, was able

Speaker 0:
to utilise a shorter term time horizon when perhaps the market was a bit less efficient or or or there were opportunities to capitalise on A on a short term view. Today, I don't see those. I think that where I get opportunities is to have a differentiated view relative to where the market thinks the company is going to be in five years time, rather than where it's going to be in six months. Um, so I really believe that that

Speaker 0:
high conviction portfolio with that long term time horizon presented in a way which is more transparent, um, is something that hopefully clients think, Yeah, this is This is a bit different and and and it's a refreshing new new take,

Speaker 0:
I think now is probably the most exciting time that I've seen in my 16 year career to be investing in in UK equities. Um, and I think there's a couple of reasons for that which, which I go into in the annual letter, in more detail. But just in summary. I mean, the first is the valuation opportunity, and at some point last year we got to a 50 year low in terms of the value of UK equities relative to US equities on a dividend yield basis.

Speaker 0:
Um, so it really is quite quite stark, um, the opportunities and and And you see that particularly when you look at companies in the UK relative to companies listed in in the US and in Europe on a like for like basis, you might have two companies essentially doing, you know, the same thing, operating in the same underlying geographies, but simply as a result of being listed in the UK market. That company is cheaper, and I do believe that gap is going to close in time.

Speaker 0:
Um and that for me, you know, presents some really exciting opportunities. But I think the second point is that there's precedent for the UK market outperforming in the sort of interest rate environment that we're in today. It's been difficult in the in the sort of decade plus since the the GFC when we had this ultra low monetary policy. Um, but actually, I think the sort of interest rate environment that we're in today and going forward could be, um, you know, much more interesting for UK equity investors.

Speaker 0:
And the third point is that the UK is really unloved with headlines in Bloomberg, such as UK is uninvestigated. Um, it really does feel that there it's it's a really unloved contrarian part of the market now. It's always very difficult to know when a contrarian part of the market is going to come back into favour. Um, but I do believe that the the starting point of being unloved, being at a cheap valuation

Speaker 0:
and having a precedent for doing well in this sort of macro environment is a good starting point as any, uh, in investing.

Speaker 0:
So, um, go to premier min dot com uh, and drop down to the the funds tab. So you're looking for the Premier Min Monthly Income Fund, and there you'll find the owners manual the annual letter that we've talked about and lots of other great content. Uh, recent insights, uh, and and videos as well.