03 January 2025
By Maynard Paton
Happy 2025! I hope your shares prospered last year and you continue to find my blog useful.
A summary of my portfolio’s 2024:
- Total return of +22.4%*;
- Individual returns ranged from up 120% for System1 to down 28% for Mincon;
- Three shares were topped-up: City of London Investment, Mountview Estates and S & U;
- No shares were top-sliced or sold entirely, and;
- No new shares were purchased.
(*Performance calculated using quoted bid prices and includes all dealing costs, withholding taxes, broker-account fees, paid dividends and cash interest)
I publish a portfolio review after every quarter (Q1, Q2 and Q3), and this post recaps my October/November/December activity as well as my 2024 performance.
Contents
Disclosure: Maynard owns shares in Andrews Sykes, Bioventix, City of London Investment, Mincon, Mountview Estates, S & U, System1, FW Thorpe, Tristel and M Winkworth. This blog post contains ShareScope affiliate links.
Q4 share trades
Mountview Estates
I increased my Mountview Estates (MTVW) position by approximately 25% at £90 including all costs.
The purchase was made for the same reason I added to MTVW at £100 during Q2: the regulated-tenancy landlord is a very simple business with valuable property assets that ought to deliver reliable shareholder returns over the very long term.
My £90 purchase price now compares to a £103 per share net asset value (NAV) that accounts for all the regulated tenancies at their original cost. I estimate if all MTVW’s properties ended their regulated-tenancy status today and were immediately sold at a fair market value, NAV could be approximately £180 per share.
Buying at or below NAV has tended to provide the best outcomes for MTVW shareholders:
I calculate the 13% discount to NAV to be the widest since 2013 while ShareScope indicates the near-6% trailing yield to be the highest since 2009:
I attended MTVW’s AGM between my Q2 top-up and my Q4 top-up. The event was the usual lively affair, with trenchant questions about corporate governance, non-executive independence and the lack of another estate valuation.
But during the meeting the chief executive did not rule out a group sale: “There may be another company that… is very capable of taking the rump of our portfolio, who may come in and buy that rump.” Although he did add: “We’re not very near that date yet.” My latest MTVW review.
Q4 portfolio news
As usual I have kept watch on all of my holdings. The Q4 developments are summarised below:
- Andrews Sykes: Nothing of significance.
- Bioventix: FY 2024 embarrassingly admitting to overstated troponin revenue and unfortunately cutting the final dividend by 3p per share (review coming soon).
- City of London Investment: Q1 2025 confessing to the eleventh quarterly outflow of client money during the last four years.
- Mincon: Following a terrible H1, Q3 2024 hinting at a stronger H2 underpinned by the declaration of the missing H1 dividend (regular blog coverage ceased for now).
- Mountview Estates: H1 2025 net asset value up 2% and a new non-executive who brings a (much needed) focus on “governance” (review coming soon).
- S & U: H1 2025 profit down 40% and the H1 dividend down 14% due to “evolving regulatory expectations“… followed by a sector-wide legal bombshell (review coming soon).
- System1: H1 2025 platform revenue up 53% and news of a £2m additional “discretionary” investment to perhaps quadruple sales over the “long term” (review coming soon).
- FW Thorpe: A welcome 2.5p per share special dividend after FY 2024 profit gained 9%, plus an informative AGM (review coming soon).
- Tristel: FY 2024 showing revenue up 16%, profit up 32% and the dividend up 29% offset by sudden US “purchasing bureaucracy” plus a boilerplate LTIP.
- M Winkworth: A Q3 2024 3p per share dividend signalling at least 12p per share for FY 2024.
I have written a full review of all the shares I held during 2024 — simply click here for the complete run-down.
Annual review
I always study my portfolio’s performance at the start of every year.
I am keen to discover where my gains and losses occurred during the previous twelve months, and check whether my portfolio decisions have become consistently good, bad or indifferent.
2024 performance
The chart below compares my portfolio’s weekly 2024 progress to that of the FTSE 100 total return index:
I finished up 22.4% versus a 9.7% gain for the UK benchmark. Last year’s positive performance built on my 15.3% gain during 2023 and I have now entirely recouped the 23.3% loss I suffered during 2022.
One holding dominated my 2024 progress: System1 started the year at 21% of my portfolio and its shares more than doubled during the twelve months. At System1’s high point I was up a remarkable 40% year-to-date. Everything else within my portfolio then became a sideshow.
2015-2024 performance
The next chart compares my portfolio’s monthly progress to that of the FTSE 100 total return index. The chart commences from when I became a full-time investor at the start of 2015:
I am ahead of the FTSE 100 over one, five and ten years:
| To 31 December 2024 | My Portfolio | FTSE 100 TRI |
| 1 year | 22.4% (22.4%pa) | 9.7% (9.7%pa) |
| 3 years | 8.3% (2.7%pa) | 23.9% (7.4%pa) |
| 5 years | 57.5% (9.5%pa) | 29.8% (5.4%pa) |
| 10 years | 134.4% (8.9%pa) | 82.9% (6.2%pa) |
I have underperformed the UK benchmark during four of the last ten years (2016, 2017, 2019 and 2022):
I will let you decide whether my portfolio’s progress makes me a good investor!
Investment returns and attribution analysis
Just to confirm, during 2024:
- I topped up three holdings (City of London Investment (Q2), Mountview Estates (Q2, Q4) and S & U (Q2));
- I left seven holdings untouched (Andrews Sykes, Bioventix, Mincon, System1, FW Thorpe, Tristel and M Winkworth), and;
- No new shares were purchased.
My portfolio started 2024 like this…
…and finished 2024 like this:
This next chart shows the total return (that is, the capital gain/loss plus dividends received) each holding produced for me during the year:
And this chart shows each holding’s contribution towards my overall 22.4% gain:
System1 had an enormous influence on my performance. My portfolio would have lost 3% had I exited this share at the start of 2024 and not reinvested the cash.
The ups and downs at System1 have dominated my returns during recent years. The shares represented 17 percentage points of my 25% gain during 2021…
…18 percentage points of my 23% loss during 2022…
…and 13 percentage points of my 15% gain during 2023:
System1 was assisted last year by gains from only M Winkworth and City of London Investment. Supported by their useful dividends, the pair added almost 6% to my 2024 performance.
Board changes perhaps attracted buyers to both shares; M Winkworth invited bid speculation after appointing two M&A consultants as non-executives, while two non-executives resigned from City of London Investment after largest shareholder George Karpus demanded action during 2023.
My remaining seven holdings all delivered negative total returns that mostly reflected financial performances ranging from subdued to terrible. Wider economic and market considerations (e.g. the Budget) also kept a lid on valuations. The seven shares combined to reduce my portfolio by 9%.
My 2024 performance was helped very slightly by the 7% average cash position held throughout the twelve months. I collected interest at an effective 2.4% after subtracting monthly broker fees.
While the year saw only three of my ten holdings register positive total returns…
… all three winners did manage to beat the FTSE 100:
Dividends, turnover and costs
A 2024 highlight was dividend income. Total payouts advanced 13.7% despite a very reduced number of special dividends, and they collectively added 4.1% to my total return:
Last year I received only one special payout — thank you FW Thorpe — which enhanced my ordinary dividends by 1%. My portfolio has amazingly received specials every year since (at least) 2015, and such extra payments have bolstered my ordinaries by 17% during the past ten years:
My ordinary dividends gained a super 31% last year, which I estimate would have been 16% without my top-ups of City of London Investment, Mountview Estates and S & U.
Most of my underlying dividend-income increase came from System1 and its first payout for more than four years. Only Tristel among my other shares lifted its dividend by a significant margin.
Portfolio turnover was my highest since 2020; I bought shares equivalent to 11.9% of my portfolio’s year-start value.
Trading costs were kept modest. Dealing commissions, stamp duty, foreign-exchange expenses and account-management fees represented an aggregate 0.10% of my portfolio’s year-start value.
Summary
So here we go into 2025, with my current investments confirmed below:
Just like 2022, 2023 and 2024, I am starting the year with a significant System1 weighting that will inevitably dictate proceedings during the next twelve months.
System1 shares doubled during 2023 and then doubled again during 2024, but I am not going to upset the market gods by talking up a hat-trick.
The real dilemma I face during 2025 is whether or not to top-slice my 38% System1 position.
I have lamented how I previously sold great multi-baggers far too early, but other portfolio opportunities are increasingly emerging. I would say Andrews Sykes, Bioventix, City of London Investment, Mountview Estates, S & U, FW Thorpe and M Winkworth could exhibit top-up qualities during 2025.
As usual I have no idea how the market will behave during the next twelve months. But I remain convinced that pinpointing UK small-caps that offer decent accounts, capable managers, respectable prospects and modest valuations remains a sensible long-term approach.
Over time I have noted my portfolio’s encouraging income progress — six of my shares have become ‘dividend baggers‘ — and I now tilt my stock-picking towards healthy payouts. Mind you, total return remains all-important and I still appreciate how multi-baggers can transform a portfolio.
Ambitions for the year ahead are the same as before, namely:
- Catch up on the huge backlog of results reviews for this blog (‘life events‘ permitting);
- Find a bargain for my remaining cash, and;
- Attend a few AGMs.
Please click here to read a full review of all the shares I held during 2024.
Until next time, I wish you safe and healthy investing.
Maynard Paton
