No. of Recommendations: 7
I believe there may even be a different way of looking at this. STEW recently substantially raised its distribution. Now, its done this annually but its been increasing even more past couple years I believe strategically.
The CEF been poorly marketed and its discount really expanded this year. The challenge here is: CEFs are generally bought for income— and STEW has been an obscure, 23 stock ultra concentrated fund with a couple percent dividend. 40% BRKA&B. Kind of a yawn void of a label lol.
Well, the huge recent 23% discount I believe allows STEW to effectively be viewed as an equity income CEF —as the discount supersizes its effective and raised payout now to 4%. The discount IMO is moving STEW recently to an approach emphasizing the payout. It sees opportunity: See 22.2% annnual payout increase this month.
No reason IMO the CEF should trade more than its historic 15% or so NAV discount.
This may sound gimmicky, but I believe it’s strategic: STEW will I believe strategically sell small portions of BRK annually (it’s been doing this recently) to achieve 2 things: diversify modestly away from its 40% top BRK holding, and fund a cash payout that translates to shareholders into more than the actual dollar payout due to the massive, and even much higher than historic NAV discount. A 4% payout to shareholders only cost STEW 3% of NAV. STEW dollars are $1.23 to us. The CEF managers challenge will be to choose appropriate BRK sell points. They are value guys and I believe can be trusted to liquidate at favorable prices.
Yes, the expense ratio is high. Absolutely. I think, though, the opportunity here is still attractive. I own in an IRA to avoid the distribution tax bill and equally important: if this NAV discount doesn’t materially reduce—pressure will be to liquidate the CEF, which today would be a 23% bonus. The large “tax bill” from such a liquidation would flow from on the CEF to its stockholders.Why I chose to own in an IRA.
I think this is value “under a rock”. This is neither followed nor understood.
