In QuotedData’s morning briefing 13 February 2025:
- AVI Japan Opportunity (AJOT) says that Andrew Rose and Thomas (Tom) Yoritaka have joined its board as new non-executive directors. Andrew is a Japanese speaker with over 38 years’ experience specialising in Japanese equities and held various senior roles at Schroder Investment Management, where he spent 11 years working in Tokyo. Tom is a seasoned venture capital investor, software executive, and board member with over 30 years of experience in the technology industry across the UK, North America, and Japan. He held executive roles in software product and corporate development at Cisco Systems, Yahoo!, and Microsoft in the US. He also served as a strategy consultant at The Boston Consulting Group in the US and Japan.
- AVI Japan Opportunity also announced that Asset Value Investors (its manager) has bought a further 50,000 AJOT shares in connection with its commitment to invest at least 25% of its investment management fee into the trust. This purchase takes AVI’s total current holding to 1,940,000 shares.
- EPE Special Opportunities said in a trading statement that its NAV rose by 1% over the course of 2024 but its share price fell by 10%. The company had cash balances of £11m as at 31 January 2025. In July 2024, it agreed the extension of the maturity of £4.0m of unsecured loan notes to July 2025. Over 2024, it repurchased 3m zero dividend preference (ZDP) shares and now has 9.5m ZDP shares remaining in issue, maturing in December 2026. The company has no other third-party debt outstanding. 600,000 shares were repurchased at a weighted average share price of 152p.
- Aquila European Opportunities (AERI) is in managed wind down. It says that it will continue paying dividends covered by earnings, but the board will no longer provide forward guidance as to the level of dividend for the year ahead. Shareholders should also note that the board will no longer seek to smooth the level of dividend over a financial year to reduce the impact of the seasonality of earnings and that, in addition the level of dividend payments (including the fourth interim dividend declared today), these are expected to decline as assets are realised, gearing is reduced and capital is returned to shareholders. Today’s fourth interim dividend is 0.79 cents per share.
- Seraphim Space (SSIT) will announce its interim results on 13 March 2025. There will be a presentation for retail investors at 11.00 (UK time) on the same day. Investors can register for the event by emailing [email protected].
- Great Portland Estates (GPE) has announced four new letting deals for ‘fully managed’ office space at its 201,000 sq ft Piccadilly Estate, in London’s West End. The refurbished 6,700 sq ft of space has let both faster than GPE’s underwrite and ahead of ERV by 13.7%, securing £1.6m of annual rent at an average of £240 per sq ft, representing a net premium of 98% to traditional leases.
- Helical (HLCL) has announced that Tim Murphy will step down as chief financial officer and be succeeded by James Moss, current chief operating officer and group company secretary at this year’s Annual General Meeting in July. Moss is a qualified chartered accountant and joined Helical in September 2014 as group financial controller. He became a member of the executive committee in March 2018 and was appointed chief operating officer in May 2022.
- Schroder UK Mid Cap (SCP) has acknowledged receipt of Saba’s requisition but has not responded in full yet beyond a recommendation that shareholders take no action at this time and await a further announcement from the company which will be made in due course.
We also have:
US and Mag 7 underweight weighs on Scottish American’s returns
Did you see these stories yesterday?
Saba’s latest attack on CQS Natural Resources is without merit
Graham Spence to replace Jonathan Simon on JPMorgan American
