One Share For The Rest Of Your Life

Berkshire Hathaway would be my selection!

Dylan; high street shops are going out of fashion! To me it seems a ridiculous proposition; extrapolate today's data into a managements actions over the next 30 years. The world changes.

Unilever.. or possibly Reckit & Benkiser. AZN/GSK at a push

Barren, there is more to the property sector than high street shops. I reckon the need for shelter at work or at home will be a continuous human 'need' for sometime yet. Maybe we will have personal 'force fields' to provide shelter in the future but I wouldn't count on it happening anytime soon !

However, nothing is going to obsolete the need to generate electricity. SSE, with its Scottish hydro-electric capacity, is a decent candidate.

Ah,but they may get Cold Fusion working in the next 20 years or so... :-)

I second Berkshire Hathaway. I know Warren's getting on, and I know that its huge size hampers it somewhat, but I still think it's the best bet.

Failing that, Unilever or Reckitt. Both are solid companies and I don't see them dying before I do. They earn good returns on equity, are financially stable, and offer an inflation hedge at minimum.

I wouldn't go for supermarkets if I could only choose one investment. As tux notes, too competitive for my liking.

Niether would I like an oily. It's commodity-based, and the reserves are going to dry up eventually.

I don't especially like utilities, either, as they require immense amounts of capital, and are regulated. I'm not keen on the insurers, either. They're pretty cyclical, so I think would only be attractive on shorter-term horizons. Plus, they do go broke.

I can't imagine holding any company unconditionally for 20 years.

Most marriages don't even last that long and love is usually involved.

A dispassionate investment should never be so unconditional. With any of the above companies a throthy market may give a selling opportunity or a change in fortunes could change your view.

Good Game This!

Find a pin , a list of the top 100 companies, close eyes ( have a quick word with your God ) THEN JAB!!

The answer is 'Hammerson' !! Whoever they are.

I'd like to cheat. Split between AZN and GSK. They seem to have totally polarised attitudes to the generic issue.

If it had to be one, it would be any large diversified miner. Dr Copper, in particular, doesn't lie...

If I was forced to choose one it would be Procter & Gamble. First dividend paid in 1891, increased dividend in each of the last 56 years, phenomenal portfolio of consumer brands, colossal economies of scale and a global distribution network so you're not too dependent upon any one country.

I'd take P&G over Unilever because it doesn't have any food interests since it sold Pringles.

re. oil. If you go for the peak oil / demand outstrips supply, look at the Canadian oiler with big interests in the Athabasca oil sands of Alberta. Suncor Energy, Cenovus Energy, Canadian Oil Sands, etc. 40+ years of reserves, though in practice a lot more.

Diageo is worth a look. Rising affluence around the world means bigger sales (alcohol is a luxury good in economic terms (as opposed to marketing terms) so sales benefit greatly from rising incomes).

If you're not put off by the merchant of death aspect, any major tobacco company such as Imperial or British American. Consumers in the developing world love their fags, if not the decreased life expectancy that they bring.

(I own shares in everything I've mentioned except tobacco)

My guilty little secret is an unhealthy liking of British American Tobacco shares. They'd be my choice if I had to pick just one share. and I don't even smoke! :-)

SGI (Stanley Gibbons). Rationale: Reasonable, rising, well-covered divi. Becoming major player in China - what a growth market for a niche retailer of collectables like this. World-renowned brand in philately. Good online offering, plus investment arm. There will always be stamp collectors, no matter what the financial markets are doing, and so SGI is, in my opinion, a safe haven. Also, Noble (NBL), for very similar reasons, but this time mainly for coins. Forgot to mention autographs business for SGI. All IMHO, DYOR.

Rolls-Royce (LSE:RR) - buy on the dips and reinvest dividend (tax free redistribution of capital) via the DRIP scheme.

RR is a propulsion provider, not just an engine company, and will be resourceful and innovative enough to continue to be at the forefront of propulsion provision - can anyone envisage a future without the need for propulsion of any sort even after oil runs out?

I like SGI and have only very recently sold it for a solid 50% gain. I became very nervous about them though after they started to guarantee returns. This creates incalculable contingent liabilities.

I was also nervous about the huge disconnect between their operating profits and their operating cashflows. Creative accounting is happening there. It may be for good reason, but it could be to mask poor trading...

TLW Tullow Oil , well run and seems to have a nose for finding oil and getting the deal to drill it.

RIT, Merchant Trust or City of London IT.

I played this game a few years ago and plumped for Weir. Pumps might not seems sexy but try running anything to do with modern civilization without them. If the job to be done is crucial, that's where you will find Weir. Better yet, they flog their kit with service contracts that run for decades!

They provide the picks and shovels of civilisation.

Only game in town Gold (phau)

ONE share?

CTY City of London, erm, Investment Trust.

Well, technically it is ONE share :-)

Aviva - what's not to like? Reaching it's "Buy me" price now.

heatingman

Another Weir man - its engineers that will make whatever is coming possible and we shall need puimps everywhere FOREVER

This article has certainly generated plenty of comment & interest.

In recent years we have seen companies which most thought were completely safe proving the opposite (RBS, LLoyds, BP - American Banks) so no individual company would be a sensible investment. It would have to be an Investment Trust or other vehicle which had a broad portfolio of investments within it.

A recovery fund, or maybe a FTSE 250 tracker would be my choice.

BAT clearly. Fools will carry on smoking forever!

BG. Napolean chose lucky generals. BG seems not only to be extremely well managed but also lucky. Take the oil offshore Brazil. Huge gas interests elsewhere. The other thing is that BG is almost entirely ex-UK, and we're doomed I tell 'ye, we're doomed!

To plumb for a single minded share is problematic. I'd go for a holding company type of share, eg a bank such as HSBC/Barclays/Standard or an insurance company, Aviva or Old Mutual even, for example.

Berkshire Hathaway is a collective investment so technically disqualified but if we are bending the rules then I would pick RIT Capital Partners.

Otherwise, Diageo (people will never stop drinking - whether through recession or expansion), J&J or Proctor & Gamble - of course, a portfolio of just 10 shares would help in perpetuity (some oil, uranium, tobacco, supermarket, property and luxury brands would help with the balance).

What to do about technology? Microsoft, Apple, Google or Facebook? Probably none of these which is why we get back to collective funds like Polar Capital.

Great question perhaps ...Microsoft because ...you cannot turn on your pc without them ..

BAT ..!

'Google... massive cash, fantastic long term strategy' - Which is what exactly ???

For me, HSBC - gonna need money in some form, forever, so there will always be banks (of some sort) & these seem the safest of all.

Although after a visit to the scottish highlands at the weekend, and seeing how many distilleries Diageo own, then they would be a big possibility. Can't see anyone taking over from the Jocks when it comes to whisky.

I think I'd plump for either Sainsbury or Morrison - but think the former just edges it on a book value basis / takeover potential.

In the good times, Sainsbury does well as the poshest of the mainstream supermarkets (i.e. not incldung Waitrose) and in the bad times, it also does well as it's a step down for the wealthiest of shoppers who draw the line at anything further down the social scale - but are just about prepared to slum it at Sainsbury's.

It's also on a good rating, pays a decent divi etc.

I agree with the comment on Carr's Milling and I tucked a few away some time ago as a long term hold. However I prefer James Halstead which again have doubled in the last 21/2 years, but most impressive is the continual growth in sales, profits and dividends right through the recession.

Those taking power providers as a choice must be close.
1. As essential as food for life.
2. The extreme capital costs required limits the competition.
3. Billions of humans still waiting to sign up for their share of power.
4. A prime example is in India, with Essar Energy standing by.

BATS - I was amazed just how many comments were posted before someone mentioned this... and then he called it a "guilty little secret".

BATS were for the first 100 years of their existence not allowed to sell cigarettes in the UK because of a commercial agreement. Although they can now sell in the UK, their market share is small here. That means that their products do not harm people, they harm foreigners, who as we all know aren't people at all.

[If you object to this definition of "people" at least it is wider than that used by Tony Blair who spoke endlessly of the "people's government" when he meant the Labour Party's government, and of how he wanted to make the people better off (look around you and see who is better off! Presumably he was including only the Blair family in that particular definition of the word)].

[b]If you had to pick, today, one share for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?

To take this strange hypothesis a little further, I'm going to add a few conditions:

* The share constitutes your entire sum of investments.
...
* It may not be a collective investment such as an investment trust.
...[/b]

I would cheat! For example, buy an off-the-shelf company, use it to run some low-risk business, issue myself more shares in it in return for my life's savings, and when I'd finished doing that (which would basically just be a matter of enough time to liquidate my current investments), turn it into an investment company by investing everything it owns in a nicely diversified portfolio of shares. It wasn't a collective investment when I bought the shares, and once bought, I'm stuck with it for the rest of my life whatever happens to it...

Sorry, but the idea of committing my life savings to a single share for the rest of my life, which could quite plausibly be another 4-5 decades, is so scary that that's the only honest answer.

Gengulphus

BSkyB, huge cash generator, cannot buyback its shares any longer so needs to get rid of cash. Am about to convert these to DRIP

AOn

Salmo 365. I hold for the long term. My £65 investment in1965 in one of the companies which are now part of Diageo is now worth around £9500 , after taking the dividends for much of that time. Some of the other investments have been with me for 30 years. Have confidence in a sector and a business with strong managemers to exploit the opportunities.