WAR - WAM Strategic Value

[System]

WAM Strategic Value Limited (WAR) aims to provide Shareholders with strong risk-adjusted returns derived from an Investment Strategy focused on identifying and capitalising on buying assets at a discount. The Investment Strategy will primarily focus on Australian LICs and LITs, with which the Investment Manager has significant expertise and experience for more than 20 years. The Company’s Investment Strategy will provide Shareholders with exposure to a diversified equities portfolio, predominantly comprised of Australian LICs and LITs, purchased at a discount to their underlying asset values that the Investment Manager believes will close over time.

The Investment Strategy's focus on LICs and LITs is expected to enhance diversification, providing direct exposure to a wide pool of underlying assets for investors.

The Company’s investment objectives are to provide capital growth over the medium-to-long term, deliver a stream of fully franked dividends and preserve capital while providing Shareholders with exposure to a diversified equities portfolio.

The Company aims to maximise total Shareholder returns with a combination of capital growth and income, allowing fully franked dividends to be paid to Shareholders, provided the Company has sufficient profits reserves and franking credits available and it is within prudent business practices to do so.

It is anticipated that WAR will list on the ASX during June 2021.

WAM Strategic Value | Wilson Asset Management

WAM Strategic Value provides shareholders with exposure to Wilson Asset Management’s proven investment process focused on identifying and capitalising on share price discounts to underlying asset values of listed companies,.

wilsonassetmanagement.com.au

 

[Dona Ferentes]

With the WAM Strategic Value IPO raising due to close on Thursday, in all likelihood oversubscribed at the maximum $225 million mark – everyone’s keeping an eye on LIC trading to see who’s in the firing line.

The latest alarm was at VGI Partners Global Investments Ltd (VG1), which fits WAR’s tactics at about 10 per cent discount and saw heavy trading on Wednesday.
However, Wilson’s attention is focused elsewhere. He’s understood to be looking at another big target, Magellan’s $1 billion-odd Magellan High Conviction Trust (MHH), which is trading at a 12 per cent discount to its asset backing. Brokers reckon he’s been snapping up MHH shares, to help get WAR off to a rollicking start.

Magellan High Conviction Trust is a nice juicy target. It listed in late 2019, is run by Hamish Douglass, invests in Microsoft, Alphabet, Facebook and the like, and its biggest shareholder is the Lowy Family Group, which declared a 5.35 per cent stake last November. Most importantly, it is struggling with a sizeable discount to asset backing.
As for WAR’s other targets, one of the prime contenders has to be Templeton Global Growth Fund, which is part way through a strategic review and is one where Wilson Asset Management Group already has a toehold 14.6 per cent stake.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

WAR started trading today... Flat $1.25 to $1.26.. but why would anyone expect anything else?


Silly ASX code by the way (and somewhat offensive). War in a search engine; not well thought through (but slightly more clever than the Adult Supplies IPO that came up with S.E.X. (oft defaulting to HUG )

 

[Sean K]

So, I'm going to invest in WAR, because it's undervalued, and it invests in undervalued LICs and LITs, that invest in undervalued fund managers, who invest in undervalued Mum and Dog stocks. I'm in!

Is this a Synthetic CDO?

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Is this a Synthetic CDO?

Hardly. It is a LIC buying undervalued LICs, and capturing the difference if, as the new manager he can close this discount to zero.

My caution (and I don't hold) is that G Wilson is basically using equity in his LICs to shoehorn out existing managers. But there are very few opportunities to buy $1 for 80c, as he is wont to say.

 

[IrishDigger]

So, I'm going to invest in WAR, because it's undervalued, and it invests in undervalued LICs and LITs, that invest in undervalued fund managers, who invest in undervalued Mum and Dog stocks. I'm in!

Is this a Synthetic CDO?

I hold for the same reason, do you still hold?

 

[Dona Ferentes]

since listing,

May 2025 look-through pre-tax NTA of $1.49 per share

I have a mate who is in this from the IPO .... disappointing is an understatement . His take is that Wilson dumped all the underperformers from other funds

For a shop that talks big, the discount to NTA is not pretty.

There's a twice yearly dividend, but consistency is not a feature.

Top20 holdings .. a fund of funds ?
(underperforming LIC of underperforming LICs?)

 

[galumay]

WAM's performance had been appalling really, but Geoff's endless hypocritical whinging about proposed super tax on unrealised gains on huge, excess value balances has been hilarious to watch. He continues to charge fees and measure performance on unrealised gains despite a constant stream of comments on twitter noting his shameless hypocrisy.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

WAM's performance had been appalling really, ....

on the subject, the AFR pushes on , today. Nice sledge at the end.

.....Wilson. He’s officially “retired” but his day-to-day activity is not totally about annoying Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Wilson loathes Chalmers’ proposal to tax the unrealised gains for super accounts with more than $3 million.

The social media convert has posted about it so many times on X and LinkedIn that we lost count (no joke, at 150 in the last two months). He’s also pushing a petition for angry punters to sign. The fact it is hosted on Wilson Asset Management’s website (with signatories compulsorily signed up to receive marketing material), suggests it’s less advocacy and more a barely disguised customer-acquisition funnel.

His aggressive campaigning on this, and the successful smashing of Labor’s franked credit reforms of 2019, have always been known to be about speaking up for his core customer base. That is, the downtrodden cashed-up Boomers. That’s fine. But unremarked in Wilson’s many, many appearances in the media is how much personal conflict he has on this one.

Wilson has two self-managed super funds that show up in his director disclosures across multiple companies. One’s called Corporate Holdings (previously called the Avoca Super Fund) and the other is Dynasty Peak (which isn’t named after some 70s porno, he insisted to us, but a portmanteau of the era’s top TV shows).

Both SMSFs are stuffed with WAM-associated stock – like 13,324,208 shares in the WAM Leader fund, which today is valued at $16.65 million. They also have some miscellaneous shares – like $1 million of stock in Maggie Beer’s food group. All up, Wilson’s SMSFs (along with some associated trusts) own around $40 million in equity assets. No wonder he’s hopping mad about the super changes!

Labor’s proposal aims to tax the unrealised appreciation of assets in super accounts. The funny thing is all of Wilson’s holdings haven’t increased in value over the last few years (they are geared towards dividend payouts).

He probably wouldn’t put it this way, but it turns out the best way to avoid the evil new tax is to invest like Wilson. Chalmers won’t touch assets that don’t go up.

 

[galumay]

Good to see the mainstream media starting to expose his blatant hypocrisy.