I would also like to see more buybacks, it seems they used to do daily buybacks a few weeks-months ago but then suddenly stopped. They seem to buy when discount is around 20%, maybe they know something we don’t?

It seems that while the market slightly recovered they are continuing to slump. Let’s hope this is a generational buying opportunity and they are not turning into Caledonia with their perpetual 30% discount.

Fair enough regarding the tracker and I wouldn’t want to convince anyone what to do with their own investments anyway. The currency situation with RCP is quite complex given its measures itself 50% against a sterling-hedged global index and 50% global index in sterling and it’s something I still struggle with a bit when trying to assess its performance.

However, I didn’t think the December NAV was too bad myself given that it was quite a bad month for world markets and it contained a six-monthly update for the directly-held private investments. But the majority of the fund investments are still valued on a 30 September basis and it may be the end of Feb or Mar NAV before we see that change significantly. I suspect the market will remain sceptical until those numbers are in and perhaps even a bit beyond that point if there is still suspicion across the market that PE firms haven’t reduced their valuation multiples sufficiently.

Sounds like it is just 3 weeks or so until the accounts are published and we get the expanded commentary that this brings. I would like to see more buybacks as that would indicate they had plenty of confidence in the NAV.

Thanks! Glad you are enjoying Money Makers and the fund profiles.

I think the Dec NAV for RIT will still largely be based on 30 Sep fund valuations so probably won’t change that much unless they decide to make some further adjustments on top. We will probably see some expanded commentary in the NAV announcement and factsheet again as well.

P.S. I’m a long time reader and subscriber to Money Makers, really enjoy reading your fund profiles. Great stuff.

The CEO was appointed in 2010 and the CIO in 2012 and I think Rothschild stepped back from day-to-day oversight not long after that and only retired as Chairman in 2019, when he was aged 83 and just a few months after his wife died. For example, the investment in Coupang was made in April 2018 so that was before he stepped back entirely. I doubt Rothschild would sit by idly, though, if he felt the team was making some rash decisions. It seems like a good time for them to get out there and promote their strategy a bit more rather than relying on broker notes to do that for them.

Caledonia has certainly done better over the last year or so but their long-term performances are still pretty similar and CLDN was underperforming RIT for much of the 2010s and these things do tend to switch around from time to time. Whether either of them will beat a global tracker is hard to say though. Sterling weakness and very strong US markets have worked in the tracker’s favour in recent years I would say and both these trusts probably take a slightly more conservative approach as they are designed to protect family wealth over generations.

However, I will be watching the NAV updates and results pretty closely this year to see what they do say about these VC investments!!

What do you think long-term about RIT since Lord Rotschild left? It seems they are doing some very weird investments (Coupang, Robinhood, Kraken).

Do you still believe they will perform long term? I’m a bit disappointed with their results compared to even Caledonia which outperforms them significantly. Makes me think I would be better off just buying VNGA80 or VWRL.