Ashmore Global’s accounts for the year ended 31 December 2014 show that the fund has now distributed around 50% of the end 2012 NAV to shareholders – in line with projections the Board made when the company adopted its realisation strategy. The Board now says that around half the remaining NAV will be realised and available for distribution by the end of December 2015.
The net asset value fell by quite a bit over the course of the year – from $6.26 to $5.28 for the dollar shares and from 619p to 521p for the Sterling shares, -15.65% and -15.83% respectively.
The report says the key detractors from performance were Jasper, Pacnet and Skenzo, while positive contributions came from GEMS/UtilEco, MCX and Indostar.
GEMS/Utilico, the Saudi Arabian waste management business, was sold in the third quarter of 2014 to Jadwa, at a premium of approximately 30% compared to its last valuation. Another smaller exit was that of Skenzo/Media.net, an internet technology company which was realised in October. In December, Ashmore managed Funds realised their positions in EMTEK, the Jakarta Stock Exchange listed media company, roughly in line with the prevailing mark.
Odebrecht Agroindustrial, the Brazilian ethanol producer, was written off. Odebrecht’s trading over the last couple of years has been hampered by a combination of poor harvests and politically motivated price controls. This resulted in rising levels of debt which eventually exceeded the company’s enterprise value.
Jasper Investments, the Singapore exchange listed oil field services business, saw a significant fall in its share price in August. Having struggled to secure new contracts for its Explorer vessel, Jasper was also unable to sell its hospitality vessel, Cosmopolitan. As a result, Jasper breached covenants and the Yiulian Shipyard was able to exercise its right to force a sale of Cosmopolitan. Jasper will continue to work with Yiulian in order to realise maximum value for Cosmopolitan but the equity value of Jasper has been written down to zero.
As part of the restructuring of Pacnet in 2012, it was refocused around its data centres and data mining business. This focus continued in 2014 with a further expansion of the company’s data centres, however, revenue growth was slower than expected and the business fell behind budget, leading the third party valuation agent to reduce the enterprise value over the course of the year. In late December, Telstra, the Australian telecoms company, announced that it would buy Pacnet in a deal which is expected to complete in the second quarter of 2015.
AGOL / AGOU : Ashmore Global says 50% distribution this year possible