Deutsche Numis dismissed after criticising Third Point Investors’ treatment of shareholders in the Malibu Life acquisition; HICL Infrastructure sells £225m of assets to fund share buybacks, Bluefield Solar makes £38m of disposals to pension fund partners and Land Securities sells a £245m office block. International Public Partnerships has a new lead manager at Amber Infrastructure.
Third Point Investors (TPOU) terminates Deutsche Numis’ contract as its joint corporate broker after analysts at the firm criticised the listed hedge fund’s treatment of shareholders in the acquisition of Malibu Life which was approved last week. Third Point, a £329m global multi-asset fund run by Dan Loeb, faced a rebellion from a group of shareholders led by Asset Value Investors angered by the lack of an 100% exit at asset value given the scale of the change in direction. The company was able to push through the transaction with the help of a VoteCo set up for US regulatory reasons which held 40% voting rights. Third Point has retained Jefferies as its now sole broker.
HICL Infrastructure (HICL) sells seven public private partnership assets in the UK for £225m to APG, the Dutch pension provider. The disposals are in line with the 31 March valuation and underline the undervaluation of the £2.3bn listed infrastructure fund’s shares trading 22% below net asset value (NAV). The proceeds will be used to repay £30m of borrowing, fund the ongoing £150m share buyback programme and support £110m of investment commitments. The portfolio being sold includes 50% of HICL’s investments in Southmead Hospital and Pinderfields and Pontefract Hospitals and its entire equity interest in four UK NHS local improvement finance trust (LIFT) projects and Edinburgh Schools. HICL has now made around £725m of disposals over the last two years. In a separate trading statement, the 7%-yielder said portfolio cash generation remained in line with expectations and was confident it would meet its 1.1 times covered dividend targets of 8.35p per share for the current financial year to 31 March 2026 and of 8.5p for the 2027 financial year.
James Carthew, head of investment company research at QuotedData, said: “Another disposal by HICL that confirms the NAV yet its discount remains stubbornly wide. However, I still really don’t like its largest investment – Affinity Water – and that tempers my enthusiasm for the stock. The board is talking about the possibility of new investments, but it is good to see that these will be weighed against more share buybacks.”
Stifel analyst Iain Scouller said in “an unusual structure” HICL had agreed a partnership framework with APG and its fund manager InfraRed Capital would manage the assets in a separately managed account. This would enable further divestments or the option of co-investment into new assets.
Bluefield Solar Income Fund (BSIF) has sold a further 250MW portfolio of solar and battery storage assets to Lyceum Solar, a joint venture 25% owned by BSIF and 75% by GLIL Infrastructure, the group of pension funds with which it formed a strategic partnership two years ago. In this third phase of the partnership, BSIF will receive £38m, of which £28m will be paid up front following completion and the remainder in 12 months dependent on targets being met. The valuation of the transaction is in line with the company’s valuation at 31 March. The assets include Mauxhall Farm, a co-located solar (44.5MW) and battery project (25MW), whose solar component has been operational since August 2024 and whose battery storage project is under construction. Proceeds from the sale will be used to repay a portion of the BSIF’s credit facility and to continue to fund its development portfolio.
James Carthew of QuotedData said: “Bluefield’s arrangement with GLIL Infrastructure feels to us like an ideal model for the continued success of the company. It gives Bluefield Solar access to much-needed capital and a way of funding its pipeline and it gives UK pension funds access to assets with predictable, inflation-linked cash flows – the sort of thing we’d all like in our pension pots.”
Gresham House Energy Storage (GRID) has completed a £220m refinancing to enable the UK battery storage fund to complete its three-year plan of extending the duration of its assets, buy new projects, fund share buybacks and resume dividend payments that were cancelled last year. The loan has been made by a syndicate of five lenders with a seven-year legal maturity and an amortisation profile over 14 years. The new facility is cheaper with the company paying 225 basis points (2.25%) over the “Sonia” inter-bank lending rate compared with the 300bps (3%) margin on its current facility. Contracted cashflows from the tolls, capacity market contracts and the recently announced long-term floors on 88% of GRID’s portfolio are expected to fully cover project level operational costs, interest, and debt repayments during the term of the loan. It said this would “significantly protect” the company from potential future revenue slumps like the one that hit the UK business in the first quarter of last year. GRID shares have soared 72% this year from last year’s lows and gained 1.4% to 80.1p today. Deutsche Numis analyst Colette Ord said: “GRID currently trades at a 29% discount to net asset value, which in our view remains undemanding for access to the structural growth opportunity within the energy storage sector, underpinned by accretive returns potential from project augmentations.”
International Public Partneships (INPP) says Jamie Hossain has replaced Chris Morgan as its lead fund manager at Amber Infrastructure and will lead the £2.2bn infrastructure fund’s shareholder engagement starting with half-year results on 4 September. Hossain is a senior investment director at Amber and has been a member of the portfolio management team since INPP’s flotation in 2006 and played an “integral role” in its strategy, portfolio construction and performance since 2009. Chair Mike Gerrard thanked Morgan for his “outstanding contribution to the company, particularly over the last six years and wish him every future success”. INPP shares were unchanged at 121.1p. They stand on a 17% discount which the company is tackling with a £200m buyback programme. Last week it sold some of its stake in Angel Trains at a 28% above premium the previous valuation, saying it would use the proceeds to fund share buybacks and support the £250m investment in Sizewell C nuclear reactor it announced last month.
Land Securities (LAND) has sold its Queen Anne’s Mansions office block in Westminster to Arora Group for £245m cash. The disposal marks “significant early progress” on Landsec’s objective to release £2bn of capital from offices by 2030 to focus on sustainable income and earnings per share growth over the long term. Chief executive Mark Allan said: “This sale provides strong evidence of the continuing recovery in the central London investment market and allows us to crystallise a full value for this off-strategy asset much sooner than we had envisaged.”
Great Portland Estates (GPE) has announced three new fully managed leasing deals totalling 11,720 sq ft of premium, refurbished office space across SIX St Andrew Street, EC4 and 31/34 Alfred Place, WC1 in London. Fully managed leasing activity has accelerated in its second quarter with eight deals completed so far up from five in the first three months of its financial year. In addition, a further eight fully managed deals are currently under offer. News of the trading momentum may deflect from a report in the Telegraph that GPE appointed a lawyer last week to conduct an investigation into its company culture after a complaint from a whistleblower.
Canadian General Investments (CGI), an £867m investment trust managed by Greg Eckel at Morgan Meighen & Associates in Toronto, severely underperformed its benchmark in the first half of the year, returning 2.3% versus a 10.2% total return from the S&P/TSX Composite Index (S&P/TSX), despite making “good progress” from “deep declines” earlier this year in response to the trade war with the US.
