Axiom European Financial Debt Fund has published its interim accounts. This is the first half-yearly report since the company was launched in November 2015. The Company’s NAV at 30 June 2016 was GBP50.3 million (92.02p per Ordinary Share). From listing until 30 June 2016, the Company’s shares traded at an average price of 95.96p per Ordinary Share, with a price of 95.50p at 30 June 2016 – a premium of 3.8% to NAV.
The Company is seeking to pay dividends totalling at least 6.00p per share in respect of the period from Admission to 31 December 2016. During the period the Company declared and paid two dividends totalling 1.35p per share and a further dividend of 1.50p per share was declared on 19 July 2016. With the payment of further dividends in October and January, the Company is on track to meet this intention.
They say it was a challenging period, with the market falling sharply in February before recovering somewhat and ending with the unexpected outcome of the Brexit vote towards the end of June. Against this unhelpful background, the Company generated a relatively small loss of 4.1% of the capital raised (net of issue costs of 2.0%).This loss comprised a revenue profit of GBP1.5 million and a capital loss on investments and foreign exchange of GBP3.7 million. The Company’s non-Sterling investments are fully hedged.
The Company uses sale and repurchase agreements to increase the gearing of the Company. As at 30 June 2016 the Company had three open sale and repurchase agreements committing the Company to make a total repayment of GBP2,515,000 including interest of GBP2,000 post the period end. This compares to shareholder funds of GBP50,319,000 as at the period end.
The report runs through their portfolio activity month by month. this is too long to reproduce here but you should be able to read it once the report is published by accessing the documents section of the Axiom page on this website.
AXI : Axiom European Financial Debt Fund affected by challenging markets