Biopharma Credit looking healthy

Biopharma Credit looking healthy – BioPharma Credit has published its annual report for the period ended 31 December 2020. Highlights are:

• NAV was fairly flat during the period, decreasing by $0.018 from $1.0217 to $1.0037
• 8.29 cents per share in total dividends during period, comfortably ahead of the target to distribute at least 7 cents per share
• Post period end, the company declared a further dividend of 2.04 cents per share including a special dividend of 0.29 cents per share in addition to the ordinary quarterly dividend of 1.75 cents per share
• Total net income for 2020 of $89m. While this is down from $122m reported during 2019, that included $46m in one-off fees linked to the prepayment of the company’s Tesaro loan
• No material impact on the credit quality of any loan as a result of the global disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic
• The company and its subsidiaries invested $548m in the period
• $308m related to commitments entered into prior to the start of the year, $165m was for the new senior secured loan with Collegium Pharmaceutical, Inc. announced 7 February 2020 and $75m as part of the amendment and upsizing of the Company’s loan with Epizyme announced 9 November 2020
• Three early repayments from Amicus, Novocure and Lexicon totalling $425m. Additional prepayment and other fees totalled an additional $14m enhancing attractive overall rates of return on these investments:
  • Novocure 10.2% Realised gross IRR
  • Lexicon 12.1% Realised gross IRR
  • Amicus 13.4% Realised gross IRR
• Active pipeline of additional potential investments to further grow and diversify the portfolio

At the end of December 2020, BioPharma Credit had made loans to nine companies and had a small amount of equity in BioDelivery Sciences. Cash was 18.1% of the portfolio, down from 21.1% at the end of 2019. The largest loan, accounting for 25.4% of the portfolio, was to Sarepta Therapeutics, a $6.7bn market cap company offering treatments for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. BioPharma Credit contributed two lots of $175m towards a total loan of $550m. The first tranche will mature in December 2023 and the second tranche in December 2024.

The statement includes a comprehensive look at the individual loans within the portfolio which is too long to reproduce here. The accounts will be on the company’s website and should soon be available via the company page on this website.

BPCR : Biopharma Credit looking healthy