Update No. 68 – 15/07/12

Our ambitions to grow our holdings in some companies we already hold and to build a couple of positions in new companies we like are being thwarted somewhat by the reluctance of other owners in these businesses to sell to us at prices we are willing to pay…

I have said before, patience in your accumulation can make a substantial difference in how well a holding performs over time.  Given that we hold some stocks that are quite thinly traded, building meaningful stakes can be a slow process, but it is at this end of the market, with appropriate patience, that the best gains can be made in my view, so although we have only deployed about 3% of the new funds we received at the end of June, we will be vigilant in pursuing the stocks we watch closely if they dip into the price range we have targeted.

In the meantime, the price of EGP Fund No. 1 remains virtually where it was this time last week, although there was an interesting spike to almost $1.10 through the week as a couple of our largest holdings were aggressively bought, though they settled by the end of the weeks trade virtually back to where they were last week.

As an investor with capital and wanting to buy, we are in the interesting position of actually hoping to wake up in the morning and hear that the international markets have fallen overnight, for some reason or another.  Yet it seems, somehow, we have got to a point where even fairly negative news either out of Australia, or abroad seems to be having a fairly negligible effect, certainly at least on the stocks we are targeting anyway.  If all readers could think negative thoughts over the weekend, perhaps next week will prove more fruitful for purchases – Tony Hansen 15/07/12.

*Unaudited figure to be confirmed externally

EGP Fund No. 1 Pty Ltd. Up by 3.45%, leading the benchmark by 3.73% since July 1^st. Since inception, EGP Fund No. 1 Pty Ltd is Up by 6.55%, leading the benchmark by 17.27% all-time (April 1^st 2011).