CLDN : Caledonia sitting on sizeable war chest
Caledonia’s net asset value rose by 4.6% in total return terms over the half year to the end of September 2014. The interim dividend was increased from 13.4p to 13.8p.
Caledonia, which organises its portfolio into a number of discrete pools, says that the growth came from the Funds pool in particular which returned 28.3%, mostly driven by JD.com (a China based e-commerce retailer held within the Capital Today China Growth Fund) which listed on NASDAQ in May. The quoted pool fell in value by 2.5% despite good performance from Dewan Housing Finance in India (where they took some profits). They highlight a fall in value of their investment in Avanti Communications. They invested £112m including investment in three listed Asian company funds (the New Silk Road Asia Landmark Fund, NTAsian Discovery Fund and Newton Asia Income fund) and two Asian private equity funds. £196m was realised from the portfolio including the sale of Oval (the insurance company) for £70m. After this activity the cash balance at the end of the period was £46m and they can add to this a £155m borrowing facility to give them substantial firepower for new acquisitions.