Latest news with #CLDN
Telegraph
01-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
The ultra-wealthy invest through family offices. Here's how to join them
Questor is The Telegraph's stockpicking column, helping you decode the markets and offering insights on where to invest for the past six decades. The concept of a family office can be traced back to Roman times, but the more modern versions originated in the 19th century with the likes of the Rockefellers, the Morgans and the DuPonts. Managing wealth over multiple generations requires an experienced team, a disciplined investment process, a long-term perspective and a capital preservation mindset. Luckily, this is readily available in the UK's investment trust industry – and you don't have to be a Rockefeller to benefit. Caledonia Investments (CLDN) and RIT Capital Partners (RCP) share similar DNA, employing investment approaches designed to both preserve capital as well as generate real returns over medium to long term. The ideal outcome for any investor is to participate in the positive returns of up markets but avoid the worst losses of down markets. Each of these trusts has demonstrated an ability to deliver attractive total returns – the five-year annualised net asset value (Nav) total returns of 13.6pc and 9.3pc for CLDN and RCP, respectively, have comfortably outperformed inflation and compare favourably with the 11pc annualised total return from the FTSE All Share index over the same period. Importantly, these returns have also been achieved with significantly lower volatility than broader equity benchmark indices. Examining the long-term performance of these trusts reveals their 'secret sauce'. Over the past decade, this column's analysis of monthly returns compared to the FTSE All Share index shows that these multi-asset, risk-aware strategies have captured between 50pc to 60pc of the index's positive returns while only experiencing 10pc to 30pc of the negative returns during down markets. This ability to navigate up and down markets is crucial, as it not only helps to protect capital, but also allows for market participation. CLDN has achieved this through a focus on exposure to high-quality companies in its global portfolio, and the blend of public and private equity. RCP also benefits from allocations to both public and private equity, but also employs 'uncorrelated strategies', including credit, government bonds and real assets as important diversified. Both investment strategies are naturally risk-averse, with management teams carefully monitoring the interaction between the different components in their portfolios and actively allocating capital to optimise risk and return. CLDN is a self-managed investment company overseen by Mat Masters (chief executive) and Rob Memmott (chief financial officer), and benefits from specialist teams focused on each of the portfolio's key asset classes of public companies, private capital and private equity funds, which each enjoy roughly equal allocation. The trust has a successful track record of delivering value from its private capital portfolio, generating a 12pc annualised total return over the past decade and realising £1.1bn in proceeds since 2012, with notable investments in 7IM, Park Holidays and BioAgilytix – and there is plenty left in the portfolio to excite: Stonehage Fleming, the largest independent multi-family office in EMEA; AIR-serv, a leader in air, vacuum and jet wash machines; Cobepa, a Belgium-based independent investment company; Butcombe Group, an inns and drinks business; and DTM the leading provider of outsourced tyre management services. RCP is also a self-managed investment company, overseen by Maggie Fanari (chief executive) and Nick Khuu (chief information officer), both of whom are experienced multi-asset investors. RCP has a larger exposure to public companies, comprising 44pc of its portfolio, and a similar weighting in private investments (33pc), but also has a quarter of its capital in uncorrelated strategies. The public equity portfolio includes exposure to opportunities in China and Japan, biotech firms, and a range of small and mid-cap companies. RCP has also been successful in generating value from its private investments. Notable recent portfolio events include the disposal of Xapo Bank, the listing of Webull and the takeover of Wiz by Alphabet. We see potential for this part of the portfolio to be an important growth driver, particularly in holdings Motive (leading software for the logistics industry), Kraken (cryptocurrency exchange) and Epic (category-leading US electronic health records business). Both trusts not only boast strong risk-adjusted returns, deep expertise and well-balanced portfolios, but also offer dividends. CLDN has increased its dividend for 57 consecutive years and currently yields 1.9pc, while RCP yields 2.1pc and plans to raise its 2025 dividend by 10.3pc. Wider than average discounts offer an attractive entry point for these strategies, in this column's view. Ten years ago, CLDN and RCP were trading on 16pc discount and 1pc premium, respectively, but since 2022, these discounts have widened dramatically – CLDN currently trades on a 32pc discount, while RCP is at a 27pc discount. In keeping with the wider trend across investment trusts, both CLDN and RCP have been actively buying back their own shares. In our view, these discounts are out of touch with the reality of the performance generated by these two portfolios, the future value drivers and the quality and experience of the teams. We believe this is a great opportunity to appoint your own family offices and benefit from a truly long-term perspective at a very reasonable price point. RIT Capital Partners Questor says: buy Ticker: RCP Share price: TBC
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Southeast Minnesota child care centers plan for National Day Without Childcare
Feb. 28—ROCHESTER — More than half a dozen Southeast Minnesota child care providers will be taking part in an annual day of advocacy Monday, March 3, 2025. The annual National Day Without Childcare was established to help demonstrate the important role child care services play in day-to-day life. However, not all the child care providers participating will be closed per se — this year. Although the day was established nationally four years ago to be disruptive and demonstrate how many essential workers rely on child care, Jacqueline Benoit-Petrich, executive director of the Civic League Day Nursery, said she doesn't want to leave her families without service on short notice and will remain open. "My families would be like, 'What am I going to do?'" Benoit-Petrich said. ISAIAH through its Kids Count On Us program is coordinating the Minnesota effort. More than 500 Minnesota child care organizations and center are participating Monday. About 100 Minnesota centers will be closed for the day. However, lessons the public learned during COVID seem to be dimming, she said. Child care funding was dropped from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Grants and emergency funding passed during COVID to help essential workers get to work have dried up. "We really saw during COVID how essential access to child care is," Benoit-Petrich said. Instead, Civic League Day Nursery (CLDN) will host policy makers to make the case for more funding and support for the child care industry. Other child care center leaders will converge at CLDN for the event. Staff and leaders from Meadow Park Preschool and Childcare Center; First Steps Academy; Thrive Childcare; Early Advantage Byron and Listos Preschool and Childcare Center will be at CLDN to share their perspectives with members of the Rochester City Council, Rochester Mayor Kim Norton and DFL Rep. Kim Hicks. Listos plans to be closed on Monday. At issue is pay for child care teachers and assistants. The median pay for child care workers in Minnesota is about $14.50, far less than licensed teachers. Often, the job child care teachers do is similar to those public school teachers, said Michael Hager, incoming board president at CLDN. "You go from working with 4- and 5-year-olds to working with 5- and 6-year-olds and magically you deserve two, three times as much?" Hager said. Hager, who is a teacher for Rochester Public Schools, used to work at CLDN and knows first-hand how similar the work can be despite a disparity in pay. "Child care development is important at every age and we need educators who understand that," he said. "It makes no sense to me that there's not the same societal importance put on (early child care)." Charity Sprunger, who has worked at CLDN for more than 12 years, left for a time to work in public schools. Sprunger said pay was the only reason she left pre-kindergarten child care. Sprunger returned in part because funding from the Minnesota Great Start Compensation Support Payment Program has temporarily augmented child care worker pay across the state. If the pay had been competitive in the first place, Sprunger said she never would have left. Benoit-Petrich said the profession is often seen as glorified babysitting and has historically been dismissed as unskilled work. Leading up to and during Monday's event, center staff will give out purple buttons that identify people who are at work because they have child care services. Benoit-Petrich said she hopes to build a day into the CLDN calendar next year in which the center is closed for National Day Without Childcare. That will make the impact of the industry more visible when people have to take the day off work, she said. However, the day and the policy asks are more than just about pay. If public funds are moved to help fund child care, those funds should help parents be able to afford it too, Benoit-Petrich added. "That's the access part we need to address," she said.
