A Trip Through the Archives by Neil Kellett

My ramble through the archives this year concentrates on the year to 31 December 1998 which is the nearest accounting period end to 10 years ago.

At the end of 1998 the Club’s fund value was £695,735 (at March 2009, £7.40 million). The average monthly contributions received during the year to 31 March 2009 were £103,952 – the total monthly contributions during 1998 were £155.002. Dividends received in 1998 amounted to £18,837 – this year, in spite of a spate of passed or reduced dividends, the figure is £215,002. The unit value at 31 December 1998 was £1.239 – at the end of March 2009 it was £2.678, an increase in excess of 116%.

Although there has been another large fall in the unit price this year it is probably worth pointing out that the FTSE index at December 1999 (referred by some people as the turn of the century) was in excess of 6,000 against the level at the date of writing this article of 4,000 – a drop of 33%. However, over the same period, our unit value has gone up from £1.382 to £2.678 – an increase of 94%.

1998 saw the third members’ lunch held at the Victoria Hotel, Beeston, Notts, again priced at £10. The speaker was Alistair Arkley, Chief Executive of Century Inns. He was very upbeat about his company and for its future. Within 6 months Century Inns had taken over by Enterprise Inns.

Share purchases in 1998 totalled £137,238 and specific purchases over £5,000 during the year were in Century Inns, Joseph Holt, The Inn Business Group (taken over in 1999), Marston’s, Old English Pub Co (now part of Greene King), Ushers (closed in 2000), Vaux of Sunderland (taken over and closed in 1999), Whitbread, Wolves & Dudley, Yates Brothers Wine Lodges (taken over in 2003) and Young’s.

In 1998 we “lost” Gibbs Mew of Salisbury (taken over by Enterprise Inns and closed). At the end of 1998 we held shares in 46 companies compared today’s 27.

At that time our largest shareholding by market value was in Greene King (£44,455) followed by Morland (£34,276), Shepherd Neame (£33,725), Eldridge Pope (£32,569), Thwaites (£30,729), Mansfield (£29,721), Marston’s (£25,899), Jennings (£23,888) and Fullers (£21,888). If you think that you have seen these figures before it is because I reported the end of 1998 figures last year instead of the 1997 figures!

Successful brewery visits were made during 1998 to Morlands of Abingdon, Burtonwood and Greene King.

I will be rambling again next year!

Cheers, Neil.