Pantheon Infrastructure has published its first set of results, covering the period from its IPO in November 2021 up to the end of 2022. Having raised its maximum target of £400m, and having seen that boosted by the exercise of its subscription shares (which brought in an additional £80.8m) the trust has been busy deploying that money.
The NAV at the end of 2022 was 98.9p (up from 98p – 100p subscription price less 2p of issuance costs – but before the final 1p dividend). £346m had been committed to ten investments at the year end, of which £288m was invested across nine investments, in line with the deployment timetable outlined at IPO. After the period end a further £43m was committed to a digital investment, GD Towers, and the total amount invested increased by £84m to £372m, principally due to funding calls on GD Towers and NGT.
A £62.5m revolving credit facility, provided by Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets, gives additional flexibility and will support additional new investments.
The trust declared 2p in didvidends for the initial period, in line with forecasts made in the prospectus. This year’s dividend doubles to 4p.
Portfolio
Five investments are in Digital Infrastructure, representing 41% of gross assets, across the data centre, towers and fibre sub‑sectors. Three investments, representing 25%, are in the Power & Utilities sector including: gas transmission, district heating and electricity generation, with the remaining investments in Renewables & Energy Efficiency (9%) and Transport & Logistics (8%). The largest percentage of the exposure is in North America (41%), with the remaining exposure in Europe (34%), and the UK (8%).
Those investments are valued on a weighted average discount rate of 14.2%. The statement says that the consensus amongst the sponsors of funds that the investment manager works with is that discount rates will either remain flat or see some modest increases. Most sponsors believe that valuations will more generally likely remain flat in the short term as underlying performance is offset by higher operating costs and/or capital expenditure.
[It is still early in the life of this trust. The manager is targeting returns of 8% – 10% per annum on average over the long term. However, in the short term there is still cash to deploy. The trust seems to be off to a solid start.]
PINT : Pantheon Infrastructure makes solid start