In QuotedData’s morning briefing 26 October 2022:
- Oakley Capital Investments (OCI) generated a 4% return on NAV over the quarter ended 30 September 2022 as its underlying portfolio of tech-enabled companies continued to deliver earnings growth. New investments of £46m included the acquisition of vLex, an additional investment in Grupo Primavera, and supporting TechInsights’ acquisition of Strategy Analytics and further school purchases for K12 education platform Affinitas. During the quarter, Oakley agreed the partial sale of Seedtag at a significant premium to its carrying value as at 30 June 2022. The fund had cash of £49m at 30 September 2022 (about 4% of NAV) and expects to receive about £153m of cash proceeds from transactions announced to date.
- Gabelli Merger Plus+ (which recently gave up its investment trust status) delivered a total return to shareholders during the year to 30 June 2022 of -1.11% in US dollars. This compares to the IQ Merger Arbitrage ETF, S&P Merger Arbitrage Index, and Credit Suisse Merger Arbitrage Liquid Index, which returned -7.44%, -1.59%, and -0.88%, respectively. The share price total return was 29.06%, with the discount narrowing during the year. The number of deals greater than $10 billion increased 11% year-over-year, and several well-known targets entered into merger agreements.