With the Election now over there is little we intend to change in our portfolio which was anticipated to grow regardless of the result.
Housebuilding and Construction should be a major beneficiary of the new government and the traditional seven year cycle of the industry could now just be at the start of a 20 year cycle in housebuilding, schools, hospitals and infrastructure. We have increased our holdings in TaylorWimpey, Redrow, GallifordTry, Berkeley and Persimmon which are all already producing increased sales and profit. Persimmon is perhaps the most interesting and potentially most profitable with its innovative SPACE 4 development of factory based construction of timber framed houses which enables it to build homes faster to a higher standard than conventional techniques.
Hotels and Catering remain our main investments with both Intercontinental Hotels and Compass Catering our favourite long term holdings, and hopefully these two International groups will be able to retain their independence as British Companies.
Television and Media remain as attractive growth investments,but we have reduced our holdings in Aviva insurance as the management is rewarding itself in advance of the future, as we saw in the past.
Our investment policy of KEY Investments in other companies in place of operating and investing in our own hotels continues successfully with an overall gain on our holdings of 46.8% since January 2014.