Hi @madamswerThank you very much for pointing this out - I had...

Hi @madamswerThank you very much for pointing this out - I had no idea VUK had outperformed +25% over that period and it's a fascinating data point.

I am still a very happy VUK shareholder. In my mind nothing has changed at all in terms of VUK's long-term outlook from when I posted that last November to today. The thesis (for me) is identical. (Full disclosure: I do admit to being a nervous wreck during the period of headline bank failures in Feb'23 but got through that ok without doing anything too stupid).

I think the general "market" & sell side analyst-types disliked the H1'23 results in large part because VUK flagged they will miss their CIR target of 50% this year. I thought this reaction was absurd (but not surprising).

As the CEO explained, the business experienced a surge in customer calls during the Liz Truss mini-budget market blow up so had to bring in a bunch of temp customer service roles to meet the heightened demand from concerned customers etc. They also invested in one-off digital infra development that would help streamline & automate this type of customer service in the future. Call me naïve but I don't think this has any real relevance (other than failing to tick the headline "50% CIR in FY23" box).

Other than this, its more or less been business as usual in my mind.

If the banking sector does see a period of elevated credit impairments (who knows, but this is a "normal" part of the cycle) - I'd back VUK management to navigate it well.