If you are a UK tax payer at this time of year you are an Ethelred (unready), a Cincinnatus (prepared) or an ostrich.
Ethelreds will be rushing to use up their £20,000 ISA allowance before the end of the tax year. I am contemplating what to put in when the new tax year starts on 6th April. There are three investment trusts that I hold, trading at big discounts to their NAV: North Atlantic Smaller Companies (28%), Caledonia (37%) and RIT (26%). The founders of all three maintain a substantial stake: Mills, Cayzer and Rothschild. So they are most unlikely to be taken over.
Next month I will be adding to my holding in RIT. I remember when Charlie Plowden rescued Monks. It was at a similar discount to RIT and it took him more than a year to change 98% of the portfolio and then the shares went back to parity and sometimes a premium. I hope it will be a similar story at RIT. At the end of last year a new manager was appointed.
Maxim Parr, a non exec director of RIT since 2020 stepped in as Chairman with Maggie Fanari beside him.
“Maggie Fanari is the Chief Executive Officer at J. Rothschild Capital Management Limited. JRCM is the investment manager for RIT Capital Partners plc and responsible for the day to day management of the Group.
Maggie was previously Senior Managing Director, Global Group Head High Conviction Equities at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan which has a global mandate to invest in public and private companies.” (RIT)
The Rothschild family don’t take bad performance lying down and I think these two will turn around the fortunes of RIT but, as Cincinnatus might have said, Rome wasn’t built in a day.