# Cymbria Closed End Fund



## robfordlives (Sep 18, 2014)

Does anyone own this? Their performance has been incredible. They are a closed end fund and appears as though 15 - 20% of this fund is invested in Edgepoint wealth which is a private wealth management firm. Allegedly trades well above NAV as well. This article discusses this fund abit


https://business.financialpost.com/news/fp-street/why-does-cymbria-punch-above-its-net-asset-value


----------



## robfordlives (Sep 18, 2014)

I also wanted to note Edgepoint is their largest holding. Second largest is Shiseido which is a Japanese grooming company. That is trading at 88 P/E. Sometimes I wonder if I know what the hell I'm doing investing...why would something in a low growth industry trade at such a high P/E??


----------



## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

I don't own it. I wish I did, but the last time I looked at it, it traded at par or at a premium to NAV and I have an aversion to buying a CEF at a premium, even though if I ever had to, this one would be a good candidate.

The large Edgepoint holding requires an explanation. Edgepoint Wealth are one of the rare investment management companies that actually think of their clients ahead of themselves. When they decided to open up the Edgepoint mutual fund company they knew that they would require a steady stream of fee income to allow them to continue to work in their client's interest while they were building up their assets under management from zero and to give them time to show their investment results.

They decided to issue a closed end fund, which they called Cymbria. Since redemptions are not allowed in a closed end fund that gave them the seed income to build their entire company. The only problem with issuing a closed end fund is that when they are issued the brokerage commissions paid to sell it will come from the fund. Also, most CEFs will drop down to a trading discount soon after issue. For every other management company in Canada, they could care less, BUT Edgepoint cared about their CEF investors and could not sacrifice them for their own benefit. Soooo, they decided to cut those CEF investors into their own company. They sacrificed their own holdings to give an equity position to the CEF investors in payment for those brokerage fees and discount (I don't think it ever traded at a discount but they were going to compensate those investors anyways).

The reason it is now 15% to 20% of the fund is that their investment results on their mutual funds have been very good and they have grown assets under management into the billions in the short time they have been in business. Note, most of the investment managers/Edgepoint owners came from Invesco. Robert Krembel, who founded Trimark is one of the top management at the company. Anyway, that companies worth is independently determined by an outside evaluator and the value of the shares owned by Cymbria are adjusted accordingly. Edgepoint itself is not public, but I suspect one day it will. The large profits that are earned now at Edgepoint are distributed to the owners and you can usually see the large dividends that are paid into the Cymbria fund.

So with all that said, if I was asked if one could really trust any investment company in Canada, and I might increase that to any investment company in the world, to work in their client's interest, I could only give you one name, at this time, and that name would be Edgepoint. There may be others but it would be a very small number of firms/managers from what I have seen in the investment world. 

For full disclosure, I only own one mutual fund in my entire stock and ETF portfolio, for the reasons I just stated about how most Investment firms operate, and that fund is Edgepoint Global Portfolio. I have owned it for years and have no problem paying the slightly reduced fee it charges.


----------



## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Trading way above NAV is a bad thing. Prices tend to revert to NAV, which means future returns will significantly lag NAV as the reversion takes place.

I think the CEFs that are most interesting are those that trade way below NAV during liquidity events.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

OptsyEagle said:


> Robert Krembel, who founded Trimark is one of the top management at the company ...
> 
> I only own one mutual fund in my entire stock and ETF portfolio, for the reasons I just stated about how most Investment firms operate, and that fund is Edgepoint Global Portfolio. I have owned it for years and have no problem paying the slightly reduced fee it charges.



krembel! that name rings a bell, he must be one of the Grand Old Men by now?

mille felicitations on the holding


----------



## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

Yes, sounds like it would have been great ground floor opportunity. Now, or in the future when the principals decide to cash in some of their position, perhaps not as great for us on the outside and late-to-the-party?


----------

