Annual General Meeting 2020

As announced on 10 July 2020, following the UK government's introduction of social distancing measures and prohibition on non-essential travel and public gatherings, it is not possible for shareholders to attend this year's AGM in person.

Shareholders were encouraged to submit questions in advance of the AGM. Responses to the most frequent questions can be found below. These have been considered by the Board.

Valuation of trading properties:

Mountview as a property trading company is not legally obliged to value its trading stock nor does any Financial Standard require it to carry out such a valuation. The modus operandi of the company is to acquire residential properties subject to regulated tenancies and sell them when they become vacant.

Because a regulated rent is such a modest return on the investment the properties are acquired at a significant discount to vacant possession value. Because the margin between acquisition cost and sale proceeds is so substantial there is never any reason to dispose of a property while it remains subject to a tenancy.

The cost of carrying out a valuation is such that your Board are reluctant to inflict such an expense on the shareholders when the information so acquired is not a useful management tool. The uncertainties created by Brexit and Covid are such that any current valuation is unlikely to have any long term reliability. Nevertheless your Board always review any representations made by shareholders in respect of a potential valuation.

Group structure:

This topic has been raised in the past and after investigating the procedures and costs involved and discussing these with shareholders the decision has been to retain the current structure.

The most limiting factor as far as liquidity is concerned is the percentage of the issued share capital held by the Sinclair family in their various guises. As long as the family are content to continue to hold their shares there is no real need for liquidity.

The attraction of the share is as a long term investment based on a very sound balance sheet and a good return on dividend which the company is able to continue paying. The nominal price of the shares is just 5p which would not appear to give much scope for a share split.