Octopus Renewables Infrastructure to save shareholders an estimated £700,000 a year after negotiating a change in its quarterly fund management fee; CT Private Equity’s half year results show a 4.5% fall in net asset value; and Intuitive Investments raises more money for China’s lottery operator.
CT Private Equity (CTPE), the £340m private equity fund run by Hamish Mair at Columbia Threadneedle, says dollar weakness and finance costs knocked 4.5% off the net asset value (NAV) of its investments in the first half with NAV per share declining from 706.03p to 674.16p at 30 June. With 14p per share of dividends included the total decline was reduced to 2.5%. In its direct portfolio, where it co-invests in private companies with external fund managers, there were gains from the sale of Dotmatics to Siemens and uplifts from Cardo Group, Accounts IQ, Weird Fish and Utimaco, but downgrades for Alessa, Amethys Radiotherapy, Agilico and Accuvein. In the funds portfolio, which accounts for 59.8% of assets, there were uplifts from Kester II, SEP V, Piper VII, Vaaka III, Axiom I and Grayvliff IV driven by strong trading and sales, but Aliante 3, Kurma Biofund and Progressio II posted losses.
James Carthew is presenting an “Understanding Private Equity” discussion at 11am this Friday with Alan Gauld from Patria Private Equity, Steve Tredget from Oakley Capital and Andrew Carnwath from CT Private Equity. Register here!
Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust (ORIT) has agreed a fee cut with its fund manager that it estimates could save shareholders around £700,000 a year. The existing tiered annual management charge of 0.95% up to £500m assets and 0.85% above that will remain but will no longer simply be applied to the company’s net asset value. Instead, it will apply 50-50 to an equal weighting to the average of NAV and market capitalisation, which compensates investors for the fact that the shares are stuck on a 30% discount below asset value. The £370m renewables fund will report half-year results on 23 September.
Technology investment company Intuitive Investments (IIG) launches its latest fund raise to support expansion of Hui10 Inc, the technology company behind the Chinese lottery and IIG’s largest investment. The £257m company is issuing £3.6m of new shares at £1.
Vietnam Enterprise Investments (VEIL) has bought back £100m of shares so far this year, purchasing 16.2m, or 8.8%, of shares for $133m in bid to curb the discount which sees stock in the £1.2bn investment company trade nearly 18% below net asset value.
Palace Capital (PCA) says last month’s 30% tender offer was over-subscribed with investors trying to sell 25.6m shares, nearly three times more than the 8.7m the real estate investment trust was prepared to buy back. Shareholders will receive £20.8m with the shares bought back at 240p.
