NOVEMBER BUDGET BLUES

WE WAIT IN ANTICIPATION

In the meantime - it's back to business

UNITE GROUP: We've held shares in the Unite Group for a number of years. It has always proved a reliable and steady investment for us. Until recently when the share price has dropped 37% over the past year and this month saw a further sharp fall.

705.50 Last Month. 540.00 Today 

This is mainly due to the drop in Chinese students coming over to UK.

Richard Williams, property analyst at QuotedData, said: “Growing tensions between the UK and China, including disturbing reports of Chinese influence over UK academic research, have laid bare the reliance the university sector places on Chinese students amid financial constraints. The purpose built student accommodation sector has benefited from a high Chinese student population in the UK, but if that number is set to fall further then growth projections could be put in doubt. UK student numbers continue to grow steadily but not enough to offset a fall in Chinese intakes. The amount of new-build student housing has risen in the last few years off the back of strong demand (a large portion of which was Chinese students), so we may get to a point of oversupply, which would be bad for rental growth prospects.

 Unite will forge ahead with its merger with Empiric Student Property, however:

“Unite says that Empiric’s occupancy levels were lower than it factored in to its offer price, but remains confident that it can deliver earnings and dividend growth through cost savings and improve occupancy once integrated with its platform, which leans heavily on its partnership with universities. It remains to be seen what effect a large drop off in Chinese student numbers will have on the wider sector.”  

The China Dolls decided to sell ALL of their holding in the Unite Group.

This has given us £6000 to add to our coffers. A very exciting £7000 to spend this month.

BAE Systems: The company has secured more than £27bn of orders so far in 2025, and further agreements are pending. Around £1.5bn is expected to be returned to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks this year. Nearly 45% of its sales come from the US, therefore not impacted by the recent US tariffs.

We discussed taking more of our profit out of BAE Systems as, with almost 100% paper gain on the share price since first purchased, we now have a substantial sum of money invested in this company. However, based on their performance to date,the decision was to hold.

Price at the time of writing: 1715

BHP: A UK court has found BHP liable for the Brazilian dam disaster under Brazilian law due to negligence.  However the share price remained amazingly strong with only a 4% drop in the past month, and showing almost 10% rise in the past 6 months. We are holding.

Price at the time of writing: 2,041

COSTAIN: A UK-based infrastructure company focused on creating connected, sustainable infrastructure for the energy, water, transportation, and defense sectors.

The company recently announced that it has been selected by Sellafield as its utilities delivery partner, a major part of Sellafield's Infrastructure Delivery Partnership (IDP), in a...  in a contract worth up to £1bn. As utilities delivery partner, Costain will refurbish and replace a variety of on-site and off-site utility distribution systems and services to enable Sellafield's decommissioning programme.

We are showing a 60% paper profit on this share. A definite HOLD for us.

Price at the time of writing: 146.60

DECISIONS:

TAYLOR WIMPEY: Yes: we have been disappointed with the performance of this company since our purchase. We are showing a 40% decline in the share price. However the company's significant land bank leaves it relatively well placed to react if demand does pick up . The landbank’s value can’t be unlocked without the relevant planning permissions, where there’s plenty of frustration across the industry. 

With its 2026 permissions in the bag, the company’s in a good place. It’s also supportive of recent changes to the planning process. But if bottlenecks in the system aren’t cleared, the target of reaching 14,000 annual completions in the medium term becomes more challenging.  There have been many positive reports supporting Taylor Wimpey.

The 15 analysts offering 12 month price targets for Taylor Wimpey plc have a median target of 130.00, with a high estimate of 172.00 and a low estimate of 105.00. The median estimate represents a 33.20% increase from the latest price of 97.60.

We are holding and invested a further £2000.

We also invested a further £1000 into our holding of Ampeak Energy, which has risen over 40% in the past month. https://ampeak.energy/ Price at the time of writing: 3.25p

An extra £1000 into The Property Franchise Group. https://thepropertyfranchisegroup.co.uk/

Price at the time of writing 496

An extra £500 into our holding in Segro. https://www.segro.com/

Price at the time of writing: 692

ALSO AN INTERESTING NEW SHARE: into which we invested £1000.

Quantum Data Energy - (previouslyknown as MAST.) https://quantumdata.energy/

Their vision is to establish and operate 1 GW of AI-dedicated power campuses across the UK within the next 36 months, creating a scalable platform that delivers long term value for their shareholders.

Price at the time of writing: 6.98

Watch this space!

No meeting next month. The China Dolls will be enjoying a Christmas lunch at the IVY in Bournemouth.

HAVE A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS:

See you all in January.

DISCLAIMER

The China Dolls is a group of private individuals who meet regularly to discuss investment strategy and make investments based on the collective opinion of the the group.

The China Dolls is not in the business of offering any form of advice on investing or other financial matters.

The content of this blog is not to be considered an inducement to trade as we trade and is offered for illustrative purposes only.

Any use you may make said content is entirely your responsibility and The China Dolls will not be held liable for any losses you may incur as a result of using this blog to help you trade.