Register Log-in Investor Type

Swiss biotech trusts resilient after recent sell-off

Swiss biotech trusts resilient after recent sell-off

Swiss biotech trusts resilient after recent sell-off – Swiss-listed biotech investment trusts, HBM Healthcare Investments (HBMN.S) and BB Biotech (BBB.S), have fared by far the best among all the sector specialist closed-end collective vehicles in the wake of the global market sell-off in recent days. All 13 trusts in the group monitored by Marten & Co have seen a fall in net asset value (NAV) over the five-week, year-to-date period (in sterling terms), although for HBM, this was held to just 1.7%.

BB Biotech’s fall in NAV was next and proportionally greater at 3.9% – equal in second place to that of Tekla Life Science – but surprisingly it saw a 3.9% rise in share price. Indeed, BB Biotech and HBM are now the only biotech specialist trusts to have seen a rise in share price year-to-date period, although the latter’s was marginally less than its rival at 3.2%.

As has been noted in previous Quoteddata.com articles, HBM still trades at a significant discount to NAV that is out of alignment with its peers. It also has a very different portfolio composition to most of its peers and also has at times held a short position on the Nasdaq biotech index, which may have been a factor in its relative out-performance given the recent sell-off. Another would be the strong post IPO performance in January of ARMO BioSciences (Nasdaq: ARMO), which is up by 144% on the mid-January IPO price. This performance perhaps illustrates the over-heated nature of the stock market for biotech, to which the recent sell-off has been in part a reaction.

Most of HBM’s peers have large holdings in major US biotechs such as Celgene, Gilead, Amgen, Alexion and Biogen  – these companies’ stocks have collectively fallen by around 5% since 2 January, as evidenced by the change in the Nasdaq biotech index.  International Biotechnology Trust managed to beat the benchmark by a shade in NAV terms, but its share price – along with that of Tekla Life Sciences – more broadly matched the index. All of the other nine trusts saw a proportionally greater fall in both NAV and price, in most cases with the two being broadly in line with one-another.

Once again the Woodford Patient Capital Trust (whose portfolio is around 70% healthcare) saw the poorest performance. Although a majority of its holdings are in private companies whose valuations are unrelated to any short term stock market changes, its largest holding, Prothena (Nasdaq: PRTA), has fallen by 30% since January 2nd, most recently on concerns arising from the unexpected departure of the company’s chief medical officer.  Woodford is also 20% geared, which increases the downside in a bear market.

The NAV and share price total return performance of the 13 biotech-specialist investment trusts monitored by Marten & Co, ranked by NAV return in the five week period to 8 February, is shown in the table below.

Investment Trust Discount to NAV (%) YTD NAV % change YTD Price, % change
HBM Healthcare Investments -13.5 -1.7 3.2
BB Biotech 9.9 -3.9 3.9
Tekla Life Sciences Investors -3.6 -3.9 -5.3
International Biotechnology -0.8 -4.4 -5.3
iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology (benchmark)   -5.1 -5.1
Biotech Growth -0.8 -5.6 -6.5
BlackRock Health Sciences 0.0 -5.7 -10.9
Tekla Healthcare Investors -0.1 -5.7 -5.7
Polar Capital Global Healthcare -2.7 -5.7 -6.1
Worldwide Healthcare 0.3 -6.2 -6.2
BB Healthcare 4.1 -6.6 -8.1
Tekla World Healthcare -6.9 -6.9 -6.5
Tekla Healthcare Opportunities -8.8 -7.6 -7.3
Woodford Patient Capital Trust -9.0 -8.7 -9.4

Swiss biotech trusts resilient after recent sell-off

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Please review our cookie, privacy & data protection and terms and conditions policies and, if you accept, please select your place of residence and whether you are a private or professional investor.

You live in…

You are a…