Listed Investment Companies

What’s a Diversified Investment, but not an ETF or Managed Fund? – Listed Investment Companies.

Some which are listed on the ASX are:
Australian Foundation Investment Corporation,
Argo Investments,
Milton Corporation,
Djerriwarrh,
Australian United Investments
Carlton.

Wilson Asset Management,
Contango
Clime.

A few points about LIC are:
they perform better than managed funds and certainly better than ETFs.
They have experts there hunting out bargains and looking for growth opportunities.
They are generally run on a cheaper cost base.
Invest by buying shares in the company.
They are not forced to buy high and sell low, since they don’t have to hand back investments to customers like Managed Funds do.

List of Blue Chip Companies - Argo Investments

The purpose of this article is to show a list of blue chip companies being invested by Investment Companies - in this case - Argo Investments.

Picking blue chip companies are easy or hard depending on who you are. If you are new to the market, the fact that there are over a thousand companies in the Australian sharemarket makes it a daunting task to even start analysing. Why not look at what the experts are investing.

Currently, the bear market is over a year old - and most people recognised this is going to be one of the worst economic downturns in history. Yet in terms of the sharemarket, clever investors are preparing to dive back in any time now, waiting for the signal that the market has bottomed. Even when the share market starts picking up again, the economy will be in the middle of a great struggle. Companies that are able to survive will be the blue chip companies that keep on producing and coming out of the recession strongly. So that is why we are focussing on blue chips.

Argo investments have been around for more than a decade. While I have not done a thorough analysis, it has done relatively well in the six months to 31 Dec 2008. I present here the list of principal investments of Argo Investments as a guide and starting point for picking blue chip companies.

BHP Billiton Ltd. 12.78%
Westpac Banking Corporation 8.81%
Telstra Corporation Ltd. 7.10%
Macquarie Group Ltd. 6.78%
Milton Corporation Ltd. 6.68%
Woolworths Ltd. 6.09%
National Australia Bank Ltd. 5.90%
Australian United Investment Company Ltd. 5.30%
Origin Energy Ltd. 5.18%
QBE Insurance Group Ltd. 4.51%
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. 4.32%
Wesfarmers Ltd. 4.10%
Commonwealth Bank of Australia 3.77%
Rio Tinto Ltd. 3.54%
Woodside Petroleum Ltd. 3.07%
Westfield Group 2.75%
Foster’s Group Ltd. 2.44%
Santos Ltd. 2.37%
AMP Ltd. 2.29%
AGL Energy Ltd. 2.22%