Doceo weekly gainers

Weekly Gainers

What do a UK mid/small-cap investor, a build-to-rent REIT, two aircraft leasing funds and a Japanese smaller companies trust all have in common? They are the latest top-five monthly performers in London’s investment company space.

ByFrank Buhagiar•02 Sep

The Top Five

Crystal Amber (CRS) holds on to top spot on Winterflood’s list of highest monthly movers in the investment company space, AGAIN – shares are up +21.7%, a slight improvement on last week’s +20.9% gain. And that’s despite no news out over the past seven days. Shares still benefiting from a run of good news, including share buybacks and a positive update on Investee company: Morphic Medical. This last highlighted how CRS’ interest in Morphic had been independently valued at around US$75.8m (£59.1m), which potentially increases CRS’ unaudited NAV per share to 172.67p from 117.85p. The news triggered a 20% share price gain on the day. Thing is, the day in question was 31 July 2024, which means the one-month anniversary has been and gone. Share price in need of a further boost otherwise it will likely be goodbye top spot.

PRS REIT (PRSR) comes from nowhere to claim second place. No mystery behind the +18.2% share price gain – a letter. Not just any letter but a requisition letter. As announced by the company, the letter calls for a general meeting at which shareholders will vote to replace two of the five existing independent non-executive Directors, including Chairman, Stephen Smith, with Robert Naylor as non-executive Chairman and Christopher Mills of Harwood Capital Management. Shareholders with a combined interest of 17.3% in the build-to-rent REIT put their signatures to the letter including Harwood itself.

Winterflood thinks “the requisitioning shareholders have particular concerns regarding the management contract extensions announced in July. The inability to terminate the manager until 2029 is considered problematic from a governance perspective.” This one could have further to run.

Doric Nimrod Air 3 (DNA3) drops one place to third despite holding onto the majority of its share price gains – up +14.8% compared to +15.4%. Last week’s news from stablemate Doric Nimrod Air 2’s (DNA2) that it is selling its remaining five Airbus A380-861 aircraft to Emirates for higher than expected still having a positive effect on DNA3. Same goes for DNA2 itself, a +14.6% share price gain on the month good for fourth spot on the list. Both funds still flying high then.

JPMorgan Japan Small Cap Growth & Income (JSGI) completes the top five, courtesy of a +9.6% share price rise. Put this down to the proposed merger with JPMorgan Japanese (JFJ) which was announced on 31 July 2024. Fair to say, it’s not been all plain sailing for JSGI’s share price. Shares initially spiked 8% higher on the day of the announcement only to give these all up and a little more a few days later on 6 August 2024 when markets, and Japan’s in particular, had their mid-summer wobble on the back of US recession fears, higher Japanese interest rates and the unwinding of the carry trade. Ah the heady days of summer – the best of times, the worst of times.

Scottish Mortgage

Scottish Mortgage’s (SMT) share price finished the week ended Friday 30 August 2024 with a monthly loss of -4.2%, that’s down on the -1.7% deficit seen seven days earlier. Similar story with NAV, off -4.3% having previously been down -1.7%. The wider global sector fared much better, down -1.5% although it had been flat on the month. Finger of blame for SMT’s relatively poor showing can perhaps be pointed at Nvidia. The megatech’s share price had a volatile time of it, finishing the week off -3.6% after a disappointing quarterly revenue report – at 9.4% of total assets, Nvidia is SMT’s largest holding.