Portfolio Update

THE THROGMORTON TRUST PLC All information is at 31 May 2012 and unaudited. Performance at month end is calculated on a cum income basis One Three One Three Month Months Year Years Net asset value* -9.0% -7.2% -8.4% 113.4% Net asset value -9.0% -7.2% -12.1% 99.1% Share price -8.0% -7.4% -11.2% 93.4% Numis plus AIM (ex Inv Cos) -8.0% -8.4% -11.3% 52.8% Sources: BlackRock and Datastream * Prior to dilution arising on conversion of subscription shares. At month end Net asset value capital only: 211.88p Net asset value incl. income: 213.45p Share price: 174.25p Discount to cum income NAV 18.4% Net yield: 1.8%* Total assets: £158.8m** Net market exposure as a% of net asset value: 106.3% Ordinary shares in issue: 73,130,326*** *Calculated using prior year interim and final dividends paid. **Includes current year revenue. ***Excluding 7,400,000 shares held in treasury. Ten Largest Sector Weightings % of total assets Support Services 9.8 Oil & Gas Producers 9.1 Electronic & Electrical Equipment 9.1 Software & Computer Services 7.9 Chemicals 6.6 Mining 6.1 Financial Services 5.1 Media 4.9 General Retailers 4.4 Travel & Leisure 4.1 ---- Total 67.1 ==== Market Exposure (Quarterly) 31.05.12 29.02.12 30.11.11 31.08.11 Long 119.1% 119.8% 113.7% 116.4% Short 12.8% 13.0% 13.4% 12.7% Gross exposure 131.9% 132.8% 127.1% 129.1% Net exposure 106.3% 106.8% 100.3% 103.7% Ten Largest Equity Investments (in alphabetical order) Company Ashtead Aveva Bellway Booker Elementis Fidessa Oxford Instruments Senior Victrex Yule Catto Commenting on the markets, Mike Prentis and Richard Plackett, representing the Investment Manager noted: During May the NAV on a cum income basis fell by 9.0%; the benchmark fell by 8.0%. The FTSE 100 Index fell by 7.3% during the month. May was a highly volatile month beset by concerns about the Eurozone's ability, and will, to protect its weaker members. We seem to be no closer to a resolution of these problems and have little clarity on how agreement can be reached between the many interested parties. Alongside this, data from other major markets has been generally weaker and confidence seems to be slipping away. None of this is good for stockmarkets, especially investment in smaller companies. Our benchmark, Numis Smaller Companies plus AIM Index was weak during the month. By comparison the FTSE 250, FTSE Smallcap and AIM Indices fell by 7.5%, 7.8% and 11.1% respectively. Our portfolio has tended to be heavily overweight small companies. Usually about 20% of the portfolio by value is in companies capitalised at less than £100 million, many of these are AIM listed. Our overweight positioning in small and AIM listed companies is a significant headwind in nervous markets when buyers for shares in such companies are often scarce. Our relative underperformance in May was due to having net exposure to the market of 106% and stock selection. Whilst being geared in falling markets is not good, it continues to be the case that most of our core holdings have balance sheets with net cash. In such a weak market it was inevitable that our long CFDs would perform poorly. Our short CFDs performed well but profits on these were lower than the losses on the long CFDs. Long only portfolio stock selection was disappointing. Our worst performer was Hargreaves Services. Hargreaves Services announced that they had encountered problems driving out a new face at the underground coal mine at Maltby. This will delay mining of this part of the mine by several months, and the lack of revenue during this period will reduce profits in its new financial year. We like the company and its management because it has had considerable success increasing the range, scale and geographical spread of its activities in a low risk way. Sadly the risks inherent in deep mining cannot be totally mitigated, we hope this will prove to be a one-off issue and management can see no similar issue in the mine's long history. The second largest negative contributor to relative performance was not owning Logica, a major constituent of our benchmark (having joined it in January this year). Logica was bid for, and the shares rose by 42% during the month. On the positive side we saw a good contribution from Booker which delivered strong results with earnings up by 23%. It also announced the acquisition of Makro, which has 30 large cash and carry stores in the UK. We had a good meeting with Booker management which re-enforced our confidence in them and their strategy. Sector allocation was positive with a good contribution from our large overweight position in electronics. We are approximately neutrally weighted in the resources sector, but in aggregate the oil & gas producers and mining sectors represent about 17% of our portfolio and our benchmark. These are highly volatile sectors and in weak markets they performed poorly falling by 16% during the month. Our long only and long CFD portfolio positioning remains unchanged with the majority of our portfolio by value in high quality companies well known to us, many of which are also exposed to faster growing parts of the world than Europe. We supplement our core holdings with non-core holdings which have significant potential. Some of these are higher risk, but where that is the case, we only hold small positions. Our short CFDs are in companies we regard as vulnerable. 21 June 2012 ENDS Latest information is available by typing www.blackrock.co.uk/thrg on the internet, "BLRKINDEX" on Reuters, "BLRK" on Bloomberg or "8800" on Topic 3 (ICV terminal). Neither the contents of the Manager's website nor the contents of any website accessible from hyperlinks on the Manager's website (or any other website) is incorporated into, or forms part of, this announcement.
UK 100

Latest directors dealings