That's because shareholders can benefit from selling up to 17 per cent of their current shareholding at book value of 85p and use all of the proceeds to buy back shares in the market at 67p. Moreover, returning capital by a tender process in effect creates a floor for the share price as the portfolio is wound down. Tender applications have to be submitted by 22 November and CREST accounts will be credited on 4 December. I last advised buying shares in LMS at 64p ('Time to capitalise on LMS', 25 Jun) and continue to rate them a low-risk value buy.
Performance of Simon's stock picks from IC seminar on 18 June
| Company | TIDM | Advised buy-in price range | Share price, 18 Jun 2012 | Offer price, 6 Nov 2012 | Percentage change |
| Telford Homes | AIM: TEF | 90p to 105p | 100p | 154p | +54.0 |
| Anglo Asian Mining | AIM: AAZ | Breakout above 40p | 37p | 50p | +35.1 |
| BP Marsh & Partners | AIM: BPM | 90p to 100p | 90p | 100p | +11.1 |
| LMS Capital | LMS | 55p to 60p | 62p | 66.5p | +7.3 |
| Noble Investments | AIM: NBL | 170p to 185p | 181p | 194p | +7.2 |
| Average gain | +22.9 | ||||
| FTSE All-Share | 2847 | 3067 | +7.7 | ||
| FTSE Small Cap | 2921 | 3258 | +11.5 | ||
| FTSE Aim | 674 | 700 | +3.9 |
Regular followers of my column will know that I have been keen on LMS Capital for some time and originally recommended buying the shares last year when they were priced at 54p ('Capital returns', 14 Feb 2011), so medium-term value investors should be sitting on some decent gains already. The company was also one of the five stock picks I selected for my investment seminar at the Investors Chronicle summer event at the BMA on 18 Jun, which was attended by 350 delegates.
The five shares have done pretty well, rising on average by 22.9 per cent in the past four months, comfortably outperforming the FTSE Small Cap and Aim indices and absolutely trouncing the mega and mid-caps. The FTSE 100 has only risen by 7 per cent in the 20-week period since the event and the FTSE 250 is up around 12 per cent, so the stock picks have created around 10 per cent of alpha against both the FTSE Small cap and FTSE 250 mid-cap indices.
I have updated the other four stock picks in recent months, but if you missed those articles the weblinks are:
Telford Homes ('A gold winning performance', 23 Oct 2012)
Anglo Asian Mining ('Golden nuggets', 24 Sep 2012) and ('Small cap wonders', 1 Oct)
BP Marsh Partners ('Hyper value buy', 26 Oct 2012)
Noble Investments ('A noble investment', 17 Sep 2012) and ('Noble's missing commission', 16 Oct 2012)
I currently retain buy recommendations on all five shares and will continue to update readers as and when there is news to report on these companies.
