Investment Club
Welcome to the web site of Oxford's InvestiGators Investment Club

The club was started in February 1998 after 3 colleagues at a Royal Mail marketing unit in Oxford discussed whether there would be sufficient interest amongst other colleagues for an investment club. Potential members were identified by word of mouth and, eventually, internal e-mail. A meeting was convened and within a very short time 20 people had joined the club and a waiting list of a further half dozen or so had been created. Some of the members had experience of equity investment but most joined the club for (hopefully) education, enrichment and amusement (where have I heard those words before?). I make no comment about which, if any, of these expectations have been fulfilled but recent levels of attendance at meetings may offer a clue. Two members have since left and been replaced by people on the waiting list. Virtually all of the club's members still work for Royal Mail although some no longer work at Oxford but remain in touch with the club's affairs using e-mail, a Lotus Notes database and (more recently) this web site.

It was agreed that each member would contribute an initial £50 of seedcorn money plus their first month's subscription. The subscription was set at a minimum of £25 per month. As the club would adopt the unit method accounting it was agreed that members could subscribe more if they wished. This would be in multiples of £25 (later amended to £5). The rules were later adapted to allow members to make lump sum investments from time to time, if they wished, perhaps to take advantage of price weaknesses.

The first shares were purchased following the meeting held on 8 April 1998. These were BT and Oasis, both of which became two of the most successful shares the club purchased. If only some of the others had been as successful! BT shares are still held as they were purchased for the long term whilst Oasis, bought for recovery after a fall in price, were sold for a significant profit in September 1999 having recovered much of their loss. The club meets monthly in the bar of a hotel on the outskirts of Oxford and with subscriptions totalling around £650 per month, and investment levels of around £1000 per deal, the club is able to make some 7 to 8 purchases per year.

The club currently pursues a policy of investing around 50% in FT100 companies (but within a wide range of 25% to 75%) and the balance in other companies on the main London Stock Exchange or the Alternative Investment Market. This implies an underweighting in large companies but the club's benchmark index is the UK All Share. As the graph shows, the unit price tracked the index very closely for much of the period between the summer of 1998 and the summer of 1999. More recently the portfolio has underperformed against the index due largely to the dire share price performance of Somerfield and one of the two BTF* Lite companies (British Airways). Recent share price falls for Rolls Royce and Go-Ahead have contributed to our woes. Our BT holding helped offset some of this with terrific performance during October and early November due to "the Orange factor". If only we had been quicker off the mark in buying more at £9.50 or less in early October - the Orange takeover announcement came 1 or 2 days too early for us.
To be continued...

A few other facts

Club commenced:                February 1998
Number of members:             19 (after John T leaves April/May 2000)
Minimum monthly subscription:  £25
Bank:                          Barclays (Community Account)
Stockbrokers:                  Barclays Stockbrokers
Membership of organisations:   Proshare
Software used (1):             Quicken (bank account and shares)
Software used (2):             Excel (unit calculations)

To be continued...