2023 McElvaine Value Fund Annual Report
2023 McElvaine Value Fund Annual Report
Friendly Disclaimer:
Simply put:
y Our Annual Report contains forward looking information. I will not update this report even if my view
changes.
y While I believe my comments and facts to be accurate, you should not rely on them without doing your
own work.
y While I would be delighted if this report encourages you to consider investing in or adding to your
investment in McElvaine Value Fund, the Fund is only sold via Prospectus. Further information is
available on our website: www.avaluefund.com
1. A discussion of the returns of the Fund can be found in the Management Report on Fund Performance.
2. The performance shown above includes results prior to December 23, 2019 when the Fund was not a reporting issuer. Had the Fund been subject to
the additional regulatory requirements applicable to a reporting issuer during such periods, the expenses of the Series B units of the Fund would likely
have been higher. Moreover, prior to becoming a reporting issuer the Fund was not subject to and did not fully comply with the investment restrictions
and practices set out in National Instrument 81-102 Investment Funds (“NI 81-102”). The Fund’s non-compliance with NI 81-102 may have impacted
the Fund’s performance for the period prior to the Fund becoming a reporting issuer. The financial statements for the period when the Fund was not a
reporting issuer, are available on the Manager’s website at www.avaluefund.com or upon request.
3. For Series B only as there were no Series A, D or F outstanding prior to December 31, 2019.
4. “Average Cash Balance” is our estimate of the average of the month-end cash and short-term bond balances held by the Fund. We have included this to
allow you to assess how the Fund was invested in order to generate the returns shown.
5. The Fund’s inception date was September 27, 1996. The performance summary only includes only full year returns and thus does not reflect the 3
month period in 1996. Please see the Management Report on Fund Performance.
6. We have included the S&P/TMX Total Return Index as we believe investors consider a broad Canadian Index Fund as an alternative to investing with
us. We have included the Fundata Canadian Small/Mid Cap Equity Index as our fund is classified as a Small/Mid Cap Equity Fund. Our portfolio is
significantly different from these indices due to our limited number of holdings, our cash levels and our investments outside of Canada. Return figures
for the Fundata Index prior to 2000 are not available.
1. General Comments
2. Our 2023 Return
3. Portfolio Update – what we own and why
General Comments
Our performance in 2023 was disappointing on an absolute and a relative basis; our three-
and five-year returns are satisfactory. I will discuss performance a little bit later in this
report. Having said this, I am pleased with our holdings and look forward to future returns.
You may recall last year I discussed investing and focusing on situations where you have a
competitive advantage. If you are interested, I have saved last year’s report on our website
under the “What we own and Why” section. This section also contains our webinars
including a recording of our Feb2024 presentation.
In a tongue-in-cheek way, I often describe the market price of a stock as Mr Spock plus/
minus Homer Simpson. What I mean is the current share price is essentially its “true value”
plus/minus the emotional state of the marginal owner. By marginal owner I simply mean
the next person to buy or sell a share. For reference, I googled a listing of emotional states
and suggest if you are a value investor, you may want to buy when the marginal seller is
experiencing fear, disgust, sadness, contempt, indifference, or sadness. Conversely, for a
value investor the best time to sell is when the buyer is optimistic and happy. In either of
these extremes, the other party is not focused on price. That is the key.
Intrinsic value to me is not an exact figure but a range ideally supported on the downside
and open ended on the upside. Determining this range need not be a complicated process
and in fact, I find a relatively straightforward estimate of value is preferred. Some investors
construct complex spreadsheet models. The danger here is while the output is precision-
like, the inputs are very subjective.
As Fran Lebowitz said: “In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra”. In other
words, business by its nature will be volatile. Any estimate of a company’s intrinsic value
ought to take this into account. In value investing there is always a monster under the bed,
and it seems to me, a complex model is too fragile a limb to stand on. With these models, a
small change in assumptions will substantially change the output. For the investor, this may
result in fear rather than confidence in the face of business volatility. This is like, as Dave
Barry puts it, taking a sleeping pill and a laxative in the same night. The outcome is likely to
be unwanted and unpleasant activity.
This is a poor analogy, but I will press forward with it. When our kids were little, they loved
5-pin bowling. Sometimes there were guardrails on the lanes to keep their (well, honestly
my) balls out of the gutter. In many cases, bowling was somewhat of a hazardous outing as
the bowling ball usually went forward but one needed to be prepared for the occasional
backward throw or multi-lane voyage. This is like a business. Rarely do things progress in a
straight line towards the goal. Incentives act as guardrails. When the unexpected happens,
the guardrails (or incentives) push the business back on course.
As I wrap up this section, I will address our structure and incentives. As an investor,
you have a lot of alternatives for your money. Some of these alternatives include funds
with a lower fee and expense structure than our fund. Whether these funds are actively
managed mutual funds, ETFs or index funds, I encourage you to also consider alignment.
Who has “skin in the game” with you? With us, you are my partner. I think this implies a
higher standard of care than say a ”client” and more importantly, recognizes we are in this
together. If MVF does well, we both do well. If MVF does poorly, I can assure you no other
investor suffers greater “financial pain” than us (Kate and me). Our interests are aligned.
FundGrade A+® is used with permission from Fundata Canada Inc., all rights reserved. A full description of FundGrade A+
can be found on our website: www.avaluefund.com
I have compared our performance to two indices: the S&P/TMX Total Return Index as I
believe this is useful information and the Fundata Canadian Focused Small/Mid Cap Index
as our fund is classified as a Small/Mid Cap Equity Fund (The Fundata Index is not available
for the 27-year period). Please keep in mind our portfolio is significantly different from
these indices due to our limited number of holdings, our cash levels, and our investments
outside of Canada.
I do not really think about the portfolio in terms of geography but more by the nature of the
investments. The “bible” of value investing is the book “The Intelligent Investor” written in
the 1930s by Benjamin Graham. Taking a little bit of liberty with Ben Graham’s ideas, I have
broken our investing into 3 categories. I define the categories as follows:
Other Items:
The Fund’s expenses consisted of custodial, legal, audit and other operating expenses which
amounted to about 1.1% of net assets. This is relatively high for two reasons:
1. We outsource our back office to top tier providers. Our custodian is RBC IS, our
auditor KPMG, our lawyers BLG and unitholder recordkeeping/fund valuations are
done by SS&C.
For the Series B units, our management fee was 1% of net assets bringing the total MER with
taxes to about 2.16%. There was no performance fee paid on the B units. There continues
to be a performance fee shortfall for the B units which will have to be made up prior to any
performance fees being paid.
To keep the discussion relatively simple, I have only discussed the Series B units as this
represents about two-thirds of our assets. McElvaine Value Fund’s audited Financial
Statements and Management Report on Fund Performance can be found under the
Documents section of our website (www.avaluefund.com) where there is additional
information on the Fund and its Series.
Portfolio Update
As of early March 2024, our portfolio looked roughly as follows:
There are a lot of comments in the media about China. When thinking about our
investments, I consider both extremes: Chinese operations are worth zero and Chinese
operations return to growth. CK Hutchison and Jardine Matheson have exposure to China.
I believe, even with no value for their Chinese businesses, the net asset value of each today
exceeds their share price.
As alluded to earlier, the share prices (in aggregate) of the balance of our smaller company
investments performed poorly. While in some cases this was justified, as we enter 2024, the
carrying value of these holdings is significantly lower than their value. This bodes well for
the future.
Having gotten this out of the way, you will find below a table highlighting several of our
holdings. I have only included those positions where I feel we currently have a full position.
You will note the table has 3 key columns:
1. Price – This indicates the size of the discount to where I estimate the company’s
intrinsic value may be in say 3-5 years. When we invest, I look down first. This table
really reflects the second step which is where the value is going.
2. Staying power – My concept of a brick house is the “environment” which I discussed
earlier in this letter. I think of this as consisting of financial risk and business risk
(which includes operations, industry, and external factors). Low financial risk is
important; as Rick Mears said: “To finish first, you must first finish”. Further, a strong
balance sheet may turn adversity into opportunity; this is the anti-fragile aspect of
investing I discussed in our 2021 Annual Report. Business risk is a fact of life and can
lead to both setbacks and opportunities.
3. Alignment – I try to evaluate if we (outside investors) are partners or patsies.
Reiterating my disclaimer, this table is not a recommendation on any one of these however
we own all of them. (what is the point of discussing an investment you don’t own!).
A couple of comments:
1. You will note Exco’s financial risk is somewhat higher than I would like. Exco is
controlled by Fairfax Financial and in Fairfax’s 2023 Annual Report, Prem comments
on Exco’s “strong balance sheet”. Maybe I am being overly harsh in my assessment. An
In this report I have used the word “I”. I would be remiss not to acknowledge and thank
Kate, Lorne and Matthew. Kate helps me with admin as well happens to be my beautiful
wife. Lorne and Matthew, who recently joined us, work on investment research.
We are issued via prospectus. A key reason for doing this was to allow investors to purchase
and hold their investment in the Fund wherever they like. If you would like to transfer
your units to an account where you have other investments, please let us know. If you are
interested in making or adding to an investment, you are able to do so directly via your
financial advisor or with DIY brokers. The Fund is RRSP, RRIF, RESP and TFSA eligible.
Please contact us if you have any questions or problems.
Most importantly, thank you for your trust and friendship. I appreciate you.
Warm regards,
Tim McElvaine
As a unitholder of McElvaine Value Fund (the “Fund”), you are entitled to redeem
your units provided certain legal requirements are met and you follow the procedures
established by McElvaine Investment Management Ltd. (the “Manager”), the manager of
the Fund, and at least annually the Manager is required to provide all unitholders with
a statement describing these requirements and procedures. This information is set out
below.
Units of the Fund can be redeemed on a monthly basis on the last business day of each
month or any other business day the Manager may designate (each a “Redemption Date”).
To redeem your units you should submit a redemption order to the Manager through
your authorized dealer. If the Manager receives your redemption order by 1:00 p.m.
(Pacific time) on a Redemption Date, the Manager will process your order at the unit price
calculated on that Redemption Date. Otherwise, the Manager will process your order at the
unit price calculated on the next Redemption Date.
Under applicable securities legislation, the Fund is not permitted to pay any redemption
proceeds unless (i) it has received a completed and signed redemption order from you, or
(ii) you make a redemption order by telephone or electronic means (where you have made
prior arrangements to provide instructions by telephone or electronic means, and the
redemption order is made in compliance with those arrangements).
When you redeem units of the Fund, your money will be sent to you within two business
days of the applicable Redemption Date if (i) the Fund has received the instructions
necessary to complete the transaction, and (ii) any payment for buying the same units that
you are redeeming has cleared. If the Manager does not receive all documentation that
it needs to process your redemption order within 10 business days after the Redemption
Date, on that 10th business day (or, if that 10th business day is not a date on which the
Manager accepts purchase orders for units of the Fund, on the next such date) the Manager
will purchase an equivalent number of units of the Fund as have been redeemed, and the
Manager will apply the redemption proceeds to the payment of the purchase price of such
units. If the purchase price of such units is less than the redemption proceeds, the Fund
will keep the difference. If, however, the unit price has increased since the Redemption
Date such that the redemption proceeds are less than the purchase price of such units, your
dealer will be required to pay the Fund the amount of the deficiency and will be entitled to
collect this amount plus expenses and interest from you.
For further information about your redemption rights, please refer to the Fund’s current
simplified prospectus, which is available on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com or on the
Fund’s website at www.avaluefund.com, or contact your dealer.
We Focus on Bargains We Have a Focused Portfolio We Are a Value Fund with Values
Our value investing We only invest in our best ideas. We are not an ESG fund but we
approach is focused on finding How many stocks does your do care where we invest. See our
bargains. fund own? website
Performance Not Asset Growth We Are Accessible We Are Not a Black Box
We earn the most when the You have a question or Our approach is understandable
Fund does well. Our focus is on comment, please reach out. & straightforward. It is focused
return not on asset growth We are your partners. on creating a margin of safety.
Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with mutual fund investments.
Please read the prospectus before investing. Mutual funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently and past
performance may not be repeated.