In QuotedData’s morning briefing 3 December 2020:
- Jupiter UK Growth’s board has agreed in principle to a voluntary winding up of the company and the offer of cash or a rollover into an open-ended UCITS fund, the Brown Advisory Global Leaders Fund. The rollover fund’s investment objective is to achieve capital appreciation by investing primarily in global equities and it was selected as the rollover option after the board took into account shareholder feedback. [Seems a strange choice to us, totally different structure and mandate. Jupiter UK Growth’s shareholders must be mightily fed up with UK equity investment trusts.]
- PRS REIT has completed the construction of its 3,000th home. A further 2,003 new rental homes are at various stages of development. The 3,000th home is a three-bedroom, semi-detached house located on PRS REIT’s Millard Grange development in Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire. It is part of a development of 129 high-quality rental homes.
- Global Resources Investment Trust (whose main remaining asset is its 25.4% shareholding in Anglo-African Minerals and loans to that company) plans to enter into a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA), raise £125,893 through a placing and issue £100,000 convertible unsecured loan notes. It would pay 20p in the pound to its creditors and then apply for its shares to be re-listed. The whole board would resign and be replaced. The hope then is that the bid from TerraCom for the interests in Anglo-African would go through. The alternative is insolvency.
- BMO Commercial Property will pay a 0.35p dividend in December, 70% of the pre-COVID rate and 40% more than last month. Rents are now ahead of previous estimates. The majority of the uncollected rent is in the retail and leisure sectors comprising shops, restaurants, a cinema and gym. The company says “There continues to be a minority of retailers who should be in a position to pay who are not engaging and the company is in the process of taking further steps to encourage dialogue. Given the high-profile coverage of its administration, we can confirm that the portfolio has no exposure to Arcadia. There is also no exposure to Debenhams.”
- Target Healthcare REIT’s AGM yesterday was interesting because 56.6m votes (21.4% of those voting) voted against a resolution to allow shareholder meetings virtually (online) in future. There are some investors who are worried about losing the chance to meet boards and managers face to face, making it harder to ask difficult questions. Target has reassured investors that it intends to revert to physical meetings as soon as the restrictions on physical gatherings are lifted and it is safe to do so. We would like to see a combination of the two if possible. A physical meeting and the chance to participate online for those investors who aren’t able to travel. This would be particularly welcome for the many funds based in the Channel Islands.
We also have news of the exercise of Golden Prospect’s subscription shares, some portfolio news at Derwent London, an acquisition by Hg Capital, a trading update from St Modwen Properties and full year results from Tritax EuroBox.