I have reduced my holdings in individual companies from two to one.
I sold Standard Life primarily because, as everything becomes dearer, I need cash to pay the bills. Now I only hold shares in AIM listed, palm oil producer, M P Evans. I started buying them more than forty years ago for an average of £1 (really). As they are the sunny side of £18 and pay a dividend over 50p I am well pleased. The main risk is government interference, by which I mean the government taking over the plantations. This is happening to estates that do not have good title to their land. Fortunately MPE has been scrupulous in getting the correct permissions from different government departments and has been renewing their leases without difficulty. In the last century, when MPE had rubber and palm oil estates in Malaysia, they owned the land; in Indonesia it is all leasehold. Furthermore the government has a simple mechanism to extract more money from the palm oil industry: raise the export levy. So I am relatively sanguine about the future.
All my other holdings are in investment and unit trusts. Not so long ago I sold Herald when it was acquired by Aberdeen and now have sold AVI because it has been absorbed by Pacific Assets. As it happens I used to have shares in Pacific Assets but was underwhelmed by their performance. Also, when I bought AVI it focussed on companies trading at big discounts to asset value and hoped to realise profits in the long term. Now it is more diversified and has most exposure in Japan and Korea. Maybe that’s a good plan but I have said goodbye.
I recently added to my holding in Manchester and London, which looks suspiciously like other global trusts with substantial exposure to US tech; 85% US and 98% tech. I will regret this when there is a shake-out. Now I will add to Merchants Trust which is really a UK index tracker; 48% FTSE 100, 38% FTSE 250. It is a good defence against the tech bubble bursting and yields 4.4% albeit in an ISA where I re-invest the income.