In QuotedData’s morning briefing 22 June 2023:
- Augmentum Fintech (AUGM) has made a further £5.4m investment into Volt, the real-time payments infrastructure company, as part of Volt’s $60m Series B funding round. The new round implies a value for Augmentum’s existing stake of £17.8m (up £11.4m on the unaudited carrying value as at 30 September 2022). As this new round has closed after Augmentum’s year end of 31 March 2023, the new valuation will not be fully reflected in the updated NAV disclosed in the annual report when it is released on 4 July. Recent milestones for Volt include a new global partnership for real-time payments with Worldpay from FIS, the world’s largest merchant acquirer, and partnering with Shopify, the global ecommerce platform, to become their first open banking provider. Volt intends to use the additional capital to fund expansion into new international markets such as APAC and the Americas, and support product development in existing markets across Europe, the UK and Brazil.
- Fair Oaks Income Fund (FAIR) will return $1.155m (about 2.078 cents per share) to its realisation shareholders on 5 July. The return of capital is being done via a compulsory redemption of 3.59% of its realisation shares and is based on a NAV for these of 57.82 cents.
- Bluefield Solar (BSIF) has agreed a £110m increase to its £100m revolving credit facility (RCF). The facility also has an uncommitted accordion feature allowing it to be increased in size by up to a further £30.0m. Lloyds Bank is a new lender, alongside the existing lenders RBS International and Santander UK. The term of the facility has been extended to May 2025 and the facility’s margin remains unchanged at 1.9%. The RCF is currently £153.0m drawn, with the total outstanding debt now standing at approximately £584.8m or 41% of gross asset value. The money may be used to to support further investments in its near-term investment pipeline.
- Grit Real Estate Income Group (GR1T) has sold its remaining 6.75% interest in Letlole la Rona (LLR), an associate owning predominantly industrial assets in Botswana. Grit executed a sale of 18,911,932 shares on the Botswana Stock Exchange at a price of 2.50 Botswanan Pula per share in cash, amounting to US$3.6m. This tranche concludes a four-part exit from the investment at a weighted average premium of 1.3% to the last published LLR NAV as at 31 December 2022. Through exiting its full 30% interest in LLR, Grit has raised an aggregate cash amount of US$20.3m (which cost US$17.6m when originally purchased between 2017 and 2019). Funds received from the transaction are expected to be applied towards Grit debt reduction and redeployment into acquisitions and future group projects over the medium term.
We also have results from Cordiant Digital Infrastructure, Global Smaller Companies, Rockwood Strategic and Urban Logistics REIT, plus a new investment by Pantheon Digital Infrastructure