April Portfolio and Purchases

After a slight hiatus during March, life was back to normal in April. The March pause meant I had some budget carrying over into April so 2 additions this month.

Portfolio
April once again had markets chugging upwards. The portfolio was up 1.4% compared to my chosen benchmark the Vanguard FTSE All Share Accumulation fund which was up 2.7% over the same period.

April top dog was Computacenter (CCC), +9% following a positive trading update at the end of the month.

Bringing up the rear, sick as a dog Saga (SAGA) dropped -47%. Thankfully this was a small punt taken last year - now considerably smaller. Unfortunately several very positive results last year from similar contrarian picks led me down this dubious route. The results from the company gave the impression the management have been asleep at the wheel, and I have no confidence in any turnaround. I'll hang on for a couple of months as the markets usually get carried away particularly on bad news, so I might see a slight bounce, but I'll sell and recycle the money into something more sensible in the near future.

April share purchase 1: ABC
Abcam (ABC) sell research tools and products for academic pharmaceutical and biotech labs. They are listed on the AIM but they are no tiddler, they are one the larger companies on the AIM with a market capitalisation around £2.5bn which puts them alongside household names such as Britvic or the Royal Mail (in market cap terms at least). They have been in business since 1998, and have grown up selling research grade antibodies to laboratories around the globe, and now sell a range of biological products and testing toolkits. If you fancy purchasing yourself a few antibodies, you can fill your boots here.

They have a very solid set of financial results including ROCE averaging in the high teens over the last 10yrs, great margins and no debt. My preference is for defensively placed companies that are likely to deliver solid returns no matter what economic conditions prevail. I am also looking for companies embracing technology, that are likely to be driving progress in their fields rather than following others, and preferably those establishing some kind of dominance within their markets. Abcam ticks a lot of these boxes.

April share purchase 2: RB.
To the FTSE100 for purchase number 2 in April - Reckitt Benckiser. News about Indivior's run in with the US Department of Justice led to some nervousness about collateral damage to prior parent company Reckitt Benckiser (RB). Indivior was Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals in a previous life, but was spun out of the parent company in 2014. RB insist any wrongdoing happened after the demerger, and have made a provision of £313m to cover any liabilities (see note 19 in the 2018 annual report). As a result the RB price dipped by over 9% over the course of a few days following the Indivior news. I like the look of RB, as I wrote here, with the exception of the debt it took on to fund the Mead Johnson purchase, they have a very respectable set of numbers. Plus they are exactly the sort of defensive business that I would prefer to invest in, and should be comfortable cuddling up next to Unilever in the portfolio.