Amendment to the Merrill Lynch Latin American Investment Trust plc Portfolio Update released on the 22/01/2008.
Replacing sentence in the Investment Manager's comments:
(Petrobras and CVRD are both at their maximum 10% weight currently) with;
(Petrobras, CVRD and other Brazilian mining and steel stocks currently represent approximately 34% of assets).
No other details of this release have been amended.
MERRILL LYNCH LATIN AMERICAN INVESTMENT TRUST PLC
All information is at 30 December 2007 and unaudited.
Performance at month end is calculated with net income reinvested
One Three *Since One Three Five
Month Months 31.03.06 Year Years Years
Sterling:
Net asset value 3.2% 5.8% 57.4% 41.6% 155.7% 495.3%
Share price 10.8% 3.9% 59.5% 42.0% 223.6% 642.2%
MSCI EM Latin American 4.7% 9.5% 62.8% 48.1% 213.6% 537.7%
US Dollars:
Net asset value -0.1% 3.3% 80.7% 44.0% 167.3% 636.0%
MSCI EM Latin American 1.3% 7.0% 86.9% 50.7% 225.2% 688.5%
Sources: BlackRock MLIM, Standard & Poor's Micropal.
*Date which BlackRock MLIM took over the investment management of the Company.
At month end
Net asset value - capital only: 555.52p
Net asset value* - cum income: 560.49p
Share price: 544.00p
Total assets: £266.5m
Discount (capital only): 2.1%
Gearing: -
Net yield: 0.8%
Ordinary shares in issue: 47,789,753
*Includes 12 months net revenue equal to 4.97p (after
payment of 1.23p (2.5c) interim dividend).
Geographical Regional Exposure % Total Assets
Brazil 71.9
Mexico 20.0
Chile 4.3
Argentina 3.5
Colombia 0.7
Panama 0.4
Net current liabilities (0.8)
-----
Total 100.0
-----
Ten Largest Equity Investments (in alphabetical order)
Company Country of Risk
All America Latina Logistica Brazil
AmBev Cia De Bebidas Brazil
America Movil Mexico
Banco Bradesco Brazil
Banco Itau Brazil
Vale Brazil
Petroleo Brasileiro Brazil
Tenaris Argentina
Unibanco Uniao Brazil
Usiminas Brazil
Commenting on the markets, Will Landers, representing the Investment
Manager noted;
Performance
For the month of December 2007, the Company posted a -0.1% decline in its NAV
and a 7.3% appreciation for its shares (all in USD), while its benchmark, the
MSCI EM Free Latin America Index posted a 1.3% return. For the full year 2007,
the Company posted a 44.0% increase in its NAV and a 44.5% share appreciation
versus 50.7% for its benchmark.
A majority of the NAV's underperformance during the month is attributable to
the portfolio's underweight position in Petrobrás. Petrobrás's shares
appreciated 18.5% during December due to some potential new reserve findings
off the coast of Brazil - we averaged over 13% in our position during the month
while the benchmark averaged over 17%, thus resulting in the underperformance.
There were no other significant contributors or detractors to performance
during the month.
Transactions/Gearing
During December, we increased the Company's weighting in Brazil to close to
72%, adding to real estate developers, healthcare and wireline
telecommunications (the latter a perennial value story that seems to be
morphing into a consolidation story), while exiting the meat processing sector.
We reduced the Company's Mexican weight to around 20%, taking some profits in
small cap names in infrastructure, homebuilders and financials. We also
increased our exposure to Tenaris in Argentina in periods of stock weakness. We
finished the month with slightly negative cash due to open trades that were
completed in the early part of January and maintained leverage at zero.
Positioning
We enter 2008 with a portfolio that is positioned to benefit from a
continuation of increased domestic economic activity in Brazil, a continuation
of the positive environment for both mining and oil stocks (Petrobras, CVRD and
other Brazilian mining and steel stocks currently represent approximately 34%
of assets), and lower growth in Mexico due to the slow down in the US economy.
In Brazil, we are overweight financials (despite the changes in taxes), real
estate developers, consumer stocks and materials. In Mexico we are underweight
consumer related names, continue to be overweight homebuilders as well as
America Movil (expect the company to have another strong growth year in 2008).
Our Tenaris overweight hinges on an improving operating environment as the rig
count grows, while we maintain an underweight in Chile and the Andean markets
due to valuation concerns. We don't expect the current slowdown in the US
economy to have a significant impact on global emerging markets economic growth
as China has assumed the leadership position with regards to global economic
growth, and continue to be bullish regarding Latin American equity prospects.
Latest information is available by typing www.blackrock.co.uk/its on the
internet, "BLRKINDEX" on Reuters, "BLRK" on Bloomberg or "8800" on Topic 3 (ICV
terminal).
22 January 2008
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Does not distribute, republish or otherwise provide any information or derived works to any third party in any manner or use or process information or derived works for any commercial purposes.
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