VOG 2005 New Thread

Found this in the ST re institutions into "value investment". Brandes plays the blue chips, not AIM minnows, but gives a good feel for that environment.

Brandes’ holding in M&S is managed by Amelia Morris, a senior analyst at the investment firm who manages its European Equity funds. Over the past six years Morris, who lives in San Diego, California,has bought and sold £1.8 billion worth of M&S shares.

With a 15.2% stake Brandes is the largest shareholder in M&S.

Morris, who is married to a former Wall Street banker, began buying shares in 1999. Over the next two years she invested about £850m. During that period Brandes paid as little as 203p a share.

But in November 2001 — with the M&S share price rising above 300p — Morris began selling. Over the next two-and-a-half years Morris sold almost half her stake, realising £525m as she offloaded her shares for as much as 385p a share.

She began investing again in October 2003 when M&S shares fell below 300p and continued to do so until shortly before Philip Green launched his £9 billion bid battle for the company. During the bid she took advantage of the share-price rise to dispose of a small part of her holding.

Brandes prides itself as a value investor, making long-term investments based on a company’s financial performance rather than following stock-market fashions or fund managers’ hunches...

Alongside its investment in M&S, Brandes owns stakes in J Sainsbury, Wm Morrison, HMV and French Connection.

The company also owns shares in ICI and BAE Systems. And in recent months Brandes has built a 6.2% stake in ITV.

Morris’s European Equity fund has over the past three years delivered impressive net returns of 33.66%. In total, Brandes, which employs 550 people, manages $102 billion (£57.5 billion) of funds.