In QuotedData’s morning briefing 8 March 2021 –
- Gore Street Energy Storage Fund (GSF) announced that strong operational performance has led to further significant growth in its NAV. As at 31 December 2020, the estimated unaudited NAV represented a 2.4% increase over the previous quarter. Post period end, the company has made further progress in the commissioning of the company’s assets located in Northern Ireland. The two 50MW assets, the largest on the Northern Irish grid, are in the final stages of construction and testing, which remains on schedule and on budget. The assets expect to start receiving attractive DS3 service revenue from 1 April. GSF also secured the grid connection rights necessary to increase the capacity of the Porterstown Republic of Ireland site from 30MW to 90MW. Lastly, the Company has secured a UK Capacity Market contract for three of the company’s assets representing 59.5MW for the 12 months starting October 2021. We also noted last week, in our morning briefing on 3 March, that GSF expects to have over 90MW of the portfolio benefiting from Dynamic Containment from April 2021 – a new revenue stream that is expected to lead to a strong uplift in anticipated revenue. Finally, with the December 2020 proceeds having been fully allocated, GSF is considering a potential equity raise as part of its existing placing programme.
- Chrysalis Investments (CHRY) said that Starling Bank’s announcement today of the completion of a major funding round – conducted at a post-new-money valuation of £1.3 billion, will result in a material uplift on CHRY’s carrying value of that asset. It is anticipated that this will lead to a gross NAV per share increase of approximately 6p compared to the growth capital fund’s last reported NAV per share. Starling Bank’s funding round, which was led by Fidelity Investments and included The Qatar Investment Authority, raised £272m. The capital raise will allow Starling to continue its rapid expansion in the UK, as well as launching Starling into Europe and offer M&A flexibility. CHRY notes that Starling’s recent growth has been exceptional. In February 2020, the bank had approximately £1bn of customer deposits; as of today, customer deposits are greater than £5bn.
- Apax Global Alpha (APAX) noted that The Apax X Fund, in which APAX is a limited partner, is an indirect shareholder in InnovAge, described as a leading provider of value-based senior care in the US. Following InnovAge’s announcement on 3 March 2021 of the pricing of its initial public offering of common stock, shares of InnovAge started trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on 4 March 2021. At the Closing Price on 4 March, APAX’s look through position in InnovAge was valued at c.€41m. This represents an uplift of 108% or c.€21m to InnovAge’s fair value at 31 December 2020 and an uplift of c.1.8% of APAX’s Adjusted NAV, as at 31 December 2020.
- Alternative Income REIT has announced Glenstone Property, which bought a 14.85% stake in the group in November 2020, now has representation on the board with Adam C Smith, director at Glenstone, joining as a non-executive director.
- McKay Securities, which owns an office and industrial portfolio in London and the South East, has announced a share buy-back programme of up to £10m (around 5% of the company’s issued share capital). The group said its substantial discount to net asset value, of 37%, make share buy-backs value enhancing for shareholders.
- Grit Real Estate, the pan-African real estate investor, has appointed Cross Kgosidiile as an independent non-executive director. He is currently managing director of the Botswana Development Corporation (BDC), the Botswana government’s development company. BDC holds 4.48% of the total issued capital of Grit.
- On Friday, BlackRock North American said that the board has decided with BlackRock to implement a review of the investment policy and objective of the company. The views of several shareholders were considered at the meeting. A further announcement will be released once the outcome of the review has concluded.
We also have interim results from Ashoka India Equity and a portfolio update from Home REIT.