The simple act of saving £1 a day could build a savings pot over time

Social media is full of ‘savings challenges’, urging people to push up the value of their nest eggs by doing everything from stuffing envelopes with money to having ‘no spend days’. But for those planning to make the most of a tax-free savings allowance in an Isa, the simple act of putting away £1 a day could build a healthy savings pot over time.

By putting £30.42 a month (the equivalent of £1 a day) away in an Isa with a 5% growth rate, you would have more than £2,000 in five years, more than £4,700 after 10 years and in excess of £18,000 in 25 years. If you invested your Isa money and it grew faster, perhaps at 7% a year on average, you would have £5,265 after 10 years and £24,642 after 25.

What happens to £1 a day when you just add time

(Picture: Bestinvest)

Slow and steady wins the race (Picture: Getty Images)

On the other hand, £1 a day in an Isa is a far more achievable goal, and the graph above shows how your cash could add up. ‘The first £1 you invest will always be the most valuable one, as it has the longest time to grow from an acorn into an oak tree,’ adds Jason.

Be aware though, that with investing, there’s always a chance you might actually get back less than you put in. Investing means the value of your investments will go up and down depending on how well the underlying stock markets are doing; if the stock markets go up then so will the value of your investment, and vice versa.

Bex and Jake Spiller used their Lifestime Isas to buy a three-bed semi-detached house in Kent – and were grateful for the government bonus which helped them to buy. Under-40s can put up to £4,000 a year into a Lisa until they are 50, receiving a government top-up of 25%.

‘My parents passed away when I was young and I didn’t have any inheritance or anything like that, so it was really nice to have that little bit of extra help,’ Bex says of the Lisa. ‘I just wish we’d had one for the five or so years we had been saving before that.’

A Lifetime Isa could net you a £50,000 deposit over 10 years, assuming an investment growth of five per cent per annum

(Picture: AJ Bell)

Everyone can save £20,000 a year into an Isa and allow this to grow tax-free, but of course, putting aside more than £1,666 a month is often (to say the least) unrealistic.

Jason Hollands, managing director at DIY investment group BestInvest, says that even £1 a day is enough to put yourself on track to have a healthy nest egg in months or years to come.

‘The key thing is to stay the course,’ he says. ‘Steadily saving and investing, even modest amounts of money, can really clock up over time as you make gains not just on the amounts originally saved but further growth on the past gains too – this is called “compound growth” and Albert Einstein described famously it as “the most powerful force in the universe.”’

The above list excludes the Watch List Trusts that are the highest from their recent lows.

Risk/Reward

The Trusts the market considers, for whatever reasons, were the Trusts worth buying first and are already up from their lows. If u buy now and the market reverses u could lose some of your hard earned. If u buy only for the yield that matters little.

The remaining Trusts, some of which are starting to go up are the second liners which the market considered were the least best prospects, u know the market is a fickle beast so not a reason not to buy in itself, especially if u like the belt and braces approach

A high yield and a Trust trading at a discount to NAV.

As always best to DYOR as there may be a reason why the Trust hasn’t moved off their low.

CMPI is the control share so u can monitor if your Trust is outperforming the market or underperforming on a week to week basis.

When any of the Watch List shares releases news, I will copy to the blog to assist us in our research.

DYOR as some information may already be out of date and Property Trusts that only quote NTAV’s are not included in the above list.

The Independent

Land Securities sees end in sight for property slump as losses nearly halve.

Story by Holly Williams

Land Sec financials© PA Archive

Commercial property giant Land Securities has seen its annual profits almost halve and said there were signs that the correction in the market was coming to an end.

The benefit of having a plan and then sticking to it.

As u can see from the chart from 2007 to 2009 the market took back all of your profit but a falling market helps the dividend hunter as they get more shares for their re-invested dividends.

With markets at new highs, another option would be to sell and re-invest in another high yielder say at 8% and u might get the chance to do it all over again.

Sequoia Economic Infrastructure Income Fund Limited

(“SEQI” or the “Company”)

Monthly NAV and portfolio update

The NAV per share for SEQI, the specialist investor in economic infrastructure debt, increased to 92.46 pence per share from the prior month’s NAV per share of 92.05 pence, (being the 31 March 2024 cum-income NAV of 93.77 less the dividend of 1.71875 pence per share declared in respect of the quarter ended 31 March 2024 and payable on 23 May 2024), representing an increase of 0.41 pence per share.

As the Company is approximately 100% currency-hedged, it does not expect to realise any material FX gains or losses over the life of its investments. However, the Company’s NAV may include unrealised short-term FX gains or losses, driven by differences in the valuation methodologies of its FX hedges and the underlying investments – such movements will typically reverse over time.

Investment Policy amendment

The current Investment Policy mandates at least 50% of the portfolio (net of interest rate hedging, if any) should be in floating rate investments. Given the current outlook for policy rates in the main markets that the Company operates in, the Company has adjusted the Investment Policy to target up to 60% of its portfolio (net of hedging) in fixed rate investments (and therefore no less than 40% in floating rate investments). This will have the practical effect of locking in current interest rates, and therefore protecting the Company’s income should rates fall.

Market Summary

During April 2024, central banks across the UK, US and Eurozone maintained policy rates at 5.25%, 5.50% and 4.00%, respectively. Government bond yields trended upward during the same period, by 0.5% in the UK and US, and 0.3% in the Eurozone, which reflected a realignment in market expectations of fewer rate reductions by the end of the year (either one or two). The most recent data on CPI inflation shows a downward trend in the UK and Eurozone, from 3.4% and 2.6% in February 2024, to 3.2% and 2.4% in March 2024 respectively. In the US, where figures have been released for April 2024, CPI inflation declined to 3.4%, from 3.5% in March 2024. CPI inflation is expected to return to close to the 2% target by the end of the year across all three regions, mainly due to the unwinding of energy-related base effects.

The Investment Adviser expects abating inflation to provide a foundation for steadier credit markets, highlighting that the long-term outlook on inflation and base rates points towards a beneficial tailwind to the Company’s NAV, as falling rates would typically increase asset valuations. The changes to the Investment Policy provide the opportunity to lock in higher rates in a falling interest rate environment.

Share buybacks

The Company bought back 12,791,719 of its ordinary shares at an average purchase price of 81.15 pence per share in April 2024. The Company first started buying shares back in July 2022 and has bought back 155,546,443 ordinary shares as of 30 April 2024 with the buyback continuing into May 2024. This share repurchase activity continues to contribute positively to NAV accretion while investing in its own diversified portfolio. The rate at which SEQI buys back shares will vary depending on various factors, including the level of our share price discount to NAV.

On 26 April 2024, the Company cancelled 154,046,443 ordinary shares of no par value in the capital of the Company which had previously been bought back.

Portfolio update

The Company currently has strong liquidity, with cash of £94.34 million, compared to undrawn investment commitments of £65.73 million. The Company’s revolving credit facility (RCF) of £325 million is also undrawn. The Company’s policy in the current environment is to operate with little or no leverage, but the RCF can be used to manage the potential misalignment of new investments versus the repayment of existing investments.

As at 30 April 2024, 58.7% of the portfolio comprised of senior secured loans and 50.7% remained in defensive sectors (Renewables, Digitalisation, Utility and Accommodation). The Company’s invested portfolio consisted of 53 private debt investments and 2 infrastructure bonds, diversified across 8 sectors and 30 sub-sectors. It had an annualised yield-to-maturity (or yield-to-worst in the case of callable bonds) of 10.10% and a cash yield of 7.90% (excluding deposit accounts). The weighted average portfolio life remains short and is approximately 3.8 years. This short duration means that as loans mature, the Company can take advantage of higher yields in the current interest rate environment.

Private debt investments represented 96.8% of the total portfolio, allowing the Company to capture illiquidity yield premiums. The Company’s invested portfolio currently consists of 42.2%[1] floating rate investments and remains geographically diversified with 53.2% located across the USA, 24.5% in the UK, 22.2% in Europe, and 0.1% in Australia/New Zealand. As at 30 April 2024, the positive effect of pull-to-par is estimated to be worth approximately 4.2p per share over the course of the life of the Company’s investments.

The portfolio remains highly diversified by sector and size, with the average loan representing about 1.6% of the total portfolio and the largest 4.4% of NAV as at 30 April 2024.

At month end, approximately 100% of the Company’s NAV consisted of either Sterling assets or was hedged into Sterling. The Company has adequate liquidity to cover margin calls, if any, on its hedging book.

Settled investments in April 2024

SEQI continues to carefully scrutinise new investment opportunities in a disciplined manner alongside other uses of proceeds such as share buybacks and ensuring it has adequate liquidity on its RCF. Aside from these uses of capital, the Company invested in an additional Senior loan for $0.8 million to Sunrun Safe Harbor Holdco LLC, a manufacturer of solar energy equipment in the USA.

No significant investments (exceeding £0.5 million) sold or repaid in April 2024

Not Soho but SOHO. Triple Point Social Housing REIT

2024 Dividend Guidance

While rent collection in the first three months of 2024 has increased relative to 2023, the Board has decided to keep the dividend target flat to preserve dividend cover whilst the Investment Manager concludes the transfer of 38 properties from Parasol to Westmoreland and proceeds with the proposed sale of a portfolio of properties (as per the Company’s Portfolio Sale and Lease Transfer announcement of 3 May 2024). As a result, the Company is targeting an aggregate dividend of 5.46 pence per Ordinary Share for the financial year ending 31 December 2024¹.  

Dividend Declaration

The Board has declared an interim dividend in respect of the period from 1 January to 31 March 2024 of 1.365 pence per Ordinary Share, payable on or around 28 June 2024 to holders of Ordinary Shares on the register on 31 May 2024. The ex-dividend date will be 30 May 2024.

Slightly below fcast but still above market average.

In the next 12 months over 40% of the loans will settle. The chart below is net of debt (£24m) plus about £45m of paydowns up to Q2 25. Obviously the 16.84% dividend will reduce but it’s likely to continue for another 4 periods at 2p a quarter – so an 8p a share return. After that (Q3 2025) it probably drops to 1p a quarter for another year and after Q3 2026 perhaps drops to 0.5p a quarter until the end of 2028.

If that’s the case then that’s 16p of dividends over 4 years. In 12 months time alone deducting 8p from today’s 48p buy price is equivalent to buying at a discount to NAV of 45.8%

Conclusion

Recency bias feels a good way to understand the discount here. It’s been bad for two years so 2024 must be bad too. Holdings in wind down must equate to a fire sale.

But there’s already been positive news in 2024 and there’s so much bad news already built in to the price – it would take a spectacular 1929 style crash to achieve what the market is assuming and ignoring that the US and UK are doing nicely thank you – on Bloomberg this morning “Maybe we are experiencing normal for longer” was an interesting comment. The nature of VSL’s assets are that they continue to generate strong returns over their contractual period of about four years, albeit returns fall as capital is returned.

Meanwhile because the liquidation of assets is reasonably near term that in the next 12 months it’s likely that there’ll be a 10p-15p capital return and 8p dividend. So potentially 50% of today’s share price.

A final thought is VSL is the sort of share which Simon Thompson of the Investor’s Chronicle likes to spot. VSL is like another Urban Exposure which was one of the ideas he advocated I believe in this article from 2021, or I believe he spoke of Amadeo earlier this week. VSL will reduce costs and probably delist at some point to save money, after which returns then get paid into your SIPP or ISA as cash – they did for me with Urban Exposure.

Regards

The Oak Bloke.

https://theoakbloke.substack.com/p/vsl-state

£££££££££££

At the higher end of the risk spectrum but a strong hold as we await news.

On 15 May 2024, Close Brothers Asset Management sold 540,155 shares in SUPERMARKET INCOME REIT PLC ORD 1P. This brought our shareholding to 4.99% of the shares in issue. This is based on the shares in issue figure of 1,246,236,185 as at 15 May 2024.
This is the required notification that the holding has crossed below 5% of the shares in issue.