In QuotedData’s morning briefing 13 April 2022:
- ICG Enterprise Trust notes that New Mountain Capital is merging Information Resources Inc., which the trust holds and invested $15m into in 2018, with The NPD Group, a global provider of market information and advisory services, with a client base of over 2,000 companies, in Hellman & Friedman’s portfolio. Information Resources provides mission-critical data and predictive analytics to consumer goods manufacturers via a data management platform. At 31 October 2021, Information Resources represented about 2.9% of the portfolio and the merger, which is expected to close in the second half of 2022, is said to represent a strong return on invested capital.
- Corporation Financière Européenne S.A may further cement its control of CIP Merchant Capital as shareholders who had previously given irrevocable undertakings not to accept the bid are now being allowed to do so. Adrian Collins, Carlo Sgarbi, Goldfinch S.A. (a company wholly owned in equal proportion by Marco Fumagalli and Carlo Sgarbi), John Falla and Stefano Campanovo will be free to accept the offer in respect of the 13.3% stake that they control between them. Separately, CIP may get a boost from its holding in Coro Energy. It currently holds €4.05m of that company’s Tranche A Eurobonds, 150,684,929 ordinary shares and 8,524,305 warrants convertible into 10 ordinary shares in Coro at an exercise price of 4p per warrant. Coro has restructured its Eurobonds – €11.25m Tranche A Eurobonds paying an annual cash coupon of 5% and €11.25m Tranche B Eurobonds which accrue interest at 5% but don’t pay out until the bonds are redeemed. The maturity of the two notes is being extended by two years to 12 April 2024 and the coupon is doubling to 10%. Coro Energy is hoping to free up cash from its Duyung PSC asset. That would be used first to repay the capital and rolled up interest on the notes and thereafter to distribute 20% of remaining net proceeds to holders of the notes. The remaining net proceeds of any sale will be retained and/or distributed to Coro’s shareholders.
- Slate Asset Management has decided not to make a bid for McKay Securities (MCKS). The decision paves the way for a takeover of McKay by Workspace Group (WKP), which made an offer for the group on 2 March. The board of McKay says that it continues to recommend unanimously the Workspace Group offer. A Court Meeting and General Meeting to consider the Workspace offer will be held on 27 April 2022.
- Ediston Property Investment Company (EPIC) has sold its leisure asset at The Lanyard, Hartlepool, which is let to Mecca Bingo, for £2.62m – 16.4% above the 31 December 2021 valuation of the property.
- Gore Street Energy Storage (GSF) raised £150m (was targeting just £75m) and will issue 136,363,636 shares at 110p. Even at that level, the issue was significantly oversubscribed. The net proceeds will be used to acquire and construct new projects in the company’s pipeline. The manager has a pipeline of approximately 1.3GW comprising 900 MW in GB, 375 MW in North America and 100 MW in Europe.
- Martin Currie Portfolio (MNP) underperformed the MSCI AC World Index by 13 percentage points over 2021 (returning 2.9% to the index’s 15.9%). This is blamed on a focus on growth stocks which are out of favour.
We also have news of new investments by Octopus Renewables and Digital 9 Infrastructure