RTW Venture looking very healthy – RTW Venture Fund has published its annual report for the year ended 31 December 2020. Over the year, its NAV increased by 54%. This makes it 88.5% NAV growth since IPO. The share price rose by 37% – the premium was perhaps too high at the start of the year. The returns contrast with a 27% return on the Nasdaq Biotech Index.
As of 31 December 2020, the company held 22 core portfolio companies (2019: Seven). Nine of these are publicly-listed and 13 are privately-held.
Over 2020, the company issued a further 29,971,040 shares, an 18.6% increase, raising an additional $41.7m.
Migration to premium listing
In what is great news for ordinary investors, the company says it is considering a potential capital raise in conjunction with an intention to apply for its shares to be migrated from the Specialist Fund Segment to the
Premium Segment of the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange. [Many investment platforms put barriers or an outright prohibition on ordinary investors buying shares traded on the Specialist Funds Segment. They have missed out on the fund’s spectacular gains since launch. We think that this is unfair.] The statement says the ambition is to broaden its register, adding sterling denomination, and facilitate eligibility for inclusion in the FTSE UK Index Series.
Drivers of returns
“Significant performance drivers of NAV growth for the reporting period include strong share price returns of Rocket (+135%) contributing c. 41%; the IPOs of six portfolio companies including Avidity, iTeos, Athira, Pulmonx, C4 Therapeutics and Tarsus, together contributing c. 15%; Frequency share price returns (+105%) contributing c. 2%; as well as performance of the non-core portfolio assets, contributing c. 10%.”
There is way more information on the portfolio in the report that we won’t replicate here (to be fair we’ve written stories about most of the major portfolio developments over the year already) but the report should be available on the company’s website shortly.
RTW : RTW Venture looking very healthy