2021 was a year of recovery for the stock market following the shock and uncertainty of 2020, and these FTSE 250 shares did particularly well. Both car retailer Inchcape (LSE: INCH) and investment trust Caledonia Investments (LSE: CLDN) rose by 41%. Could another rise be on the cards this year?
Riding a wave – for now
Second-hand retailers are riding a bit of a wave at the moment caused by the shortage of new cars. It’s unclear how long this will go on for. Further signs from Inchcape or its competitors that pricing remains strong, and the supply of new cars low, could see the shares perform similarly to last year. All the more so if there is a rotation out of growth shares because of inflation concerns. A value share like Inchcape could benefit from investors looking for profitable lowly-rated companies.
The investment case isn’t only about the market though. Management is also ambitious. The car retailer has a new strategy. The FTSE 250 company said the new strategy, dubbed ‘Accelerate’, features two growth pillars — ‘Distribution Excellence’ and ‘Vehicle Lifecycle Services’.
Looking at its medium-term financial outlook, in ‘Distribution Excellence’ it said it is expecting a compound annual growth rate for profits in the mid-to-high single-digits. In ‘Vehicle Lifecycle Services’, meanwhile, Inchcape said it is pencilling in at least £50m of incremental profit.
While that’s positive, car retailing is typically a low-margin industry. Inchcape is no exception. Operating margins are currently around 2%. That makes car retailing a volume-based game, so the company needs to sell a lot of cars to make a lot of profit.
Overall when it comes to car retailers I prefer Vertu Motors, which I suspect could be a takeover target. I’d be more likely to add it to my portfolio than Inchcape, as I don’t think the latter will do as well again this year.
One of the top FTSE 250 shares?
Meanwhile, as a Scot, perhaps I have an unconscious bias towards Caledonia Investments. But the analytical part of me thinks it’s an investment trust that could do well this year – even after last year’s strong performance.
The shares still trade at a discount to the net asset value of 17.5%. That doesn’t necessarily make them good value, but it does provide some margin of safety.
The trust is well established and has been going for 140 years. It invests in both public and private companies with top holdings on the publicly-listed side of things being Oracle, Microsoft and Texas Instruments. UK companies also feature including Polar Capital, Croda International and Unilever. Quoted companies account for 31% of the trust. Some 28% is in private companies and 30% is in funds, these are indirect investments through Asian and US-based private equity funds. The rest is cash.
The ongoing charge versus peers is quite reasonable at 0.98%. Similar trusts will often by charging double.
The downside could be that the discount widens further and the share price falls. Caledonia’s multi-asset strategy could put investors off investing because it’s less clear what they’re getting.
However, with access to private companies, I think Caledonia Investments adds a lot of diversification and so I’m really thinking about adding it to my portfolio. This is a share with a path to increase substantially again this year if the discount narrows and the net asset value, so the value of its investments rises.
