Might be nothing new in the slides but a lot of useful stuff...

Might be nothing new in the slides but a lot of useful stuff said at the Melbourne shareholder meeting today.

A major concern I, and other shareholders I know, have is that WAM is spreading itself too thin with recent Leaders IPO, just taking over Century and now Microcap.  This has implications for the existing funds, not just the forthcoming Microcap.

I have copied below my post on the WAM forum today, discussing the new Microcap priority offer.

Spoke with Geoff Wilson before the meeting (in Melbourne today) and he addressed the issue during his remarks at the meeting.
Basically, he said that WAM continues with its existing two prong investment strategy - research and market driven. That process is happening already and does not really change or grow with size (except that as the funds grow, they pass on some smaller opportunities since they are too small to have any impact - these will now be covered by the new microcap fund).  The issue was essentially one of allocation between the various funds.

The real impact of the new funds is in back office administration.  They have added additional accounting resources and will always ensure the back office is adequately resourced.
WAM now has 27 staff, 8 investment, the rest admin/accounting.

The question of succession planning came up in the meeting. The reply was that it was an issue which they seriously consider. Their management capability had been expanded with Kate as CEO and Chris as CIO.  Just as important, Geoff added, was that great care was taken in selecting staff to make sure they all held the same values. Geoff by the way said he was 59 and had no plans to retire before 80, although having just attended the Buffett event in the USA , he thinks 80 might be too young.

He did flag that a new WAM international fund was coming - in Feb/March 2018. A key senior player was returning to Australia later in the year which was the reason for the hold-up.

On the new microcap fund, Geoff and the other investment staff on stage were all investing. Geoff or Chris, I forget which, commented that potentially the new microcap fund would generate the highest returns, albeit, it also carried the most risk.