Lon.fin&inv.grp Share Price (LFI)

I remember almost 40 years ago, in my twenties, i used to love to visit their offices, next door to Companies House in those days, picking up copies of all the company half year and annual reports. They had some great names, Kwahu, and United Tin Areas.

In his heyday, David Marshall controlled nearly 10 quoted entities, listed here, Luxembourg and RSA. Now I think just three being London Finance, his master company Marshall Monteagle [RSA] and Western Selection [ISDX]. There is also the soon to be wound up Halogen which is the delisted rump of the old Falcon Mines. Its only asset is a decent stake in fast growing Heartstone Inns which it will distribute in specie shortly London Finance are unusual as they retain a full listing but are a pint sized concern but potentially undervalued all the same. Their assets are threefold being 8m Finsbury Food Group, nearly 8m Western Selection and a super blue chip portfolio and cash of around £6m having made an allowance for liabilities/the recent Finsbury share sale. With just over 31m shares in issue that translates to NAV of around 67p with Finsbury accounting for c28p, Western Selection 19p [using its NAV and not the well below asset value share price] and 20p for the general portfolio/cash. London Finance is debt free. 63% of the equity is controlled by three shareholders [Marshall family 41%] with, I imagine, a long tail of very small holdings harking back to the time when London Finance was East Rand Consolidated Clearly with Western also trading at a large discount, the cost of maintaining two listed entities and the expense of a Premium Listing one would imagine there is scope for some housekeeping here which would reduce costs and help reduce the discount. Equally there would also seem to be the opportunity for other corporate activity given the 'group' is asset rich, debt free and clean. Then again with the Marshall family no doubt content to play a long game they may just be looking to retain the status quo. There is also the debate about Finsbury, that is having such a large slice of the pie - they have been a stellar performer but even after selling 2m shares, is the holding still too large? It is always good to know companies like London Finance remain listed and hark back to a different time