BlackRock World Mining (BRWM) has sold its BHP Brazil Royalty Contract to Gold Royalty Corp for $70m, at a 105% premium over the current value of $34.1m. The uplift boosts the investment trust‘s net asset value (NAV) by 1.8% which will be reflected in tomorrow’s daily NAV statement. The company will also receive all revenue from the royalty owed for production in 2025 which has not yet been paid. BRWM first bought the position for $12m in July 2014. Since then, it has generated $38.5m in royalty income which combined with the sale price gives a total of $113m that is nine-times the original investment.
James Carthew, head of investment company research at QuotedData, said: “When BlackRock World Mining started making royalty investments some years ago, I figured that these would make useful contributions to the revenue account but would not provide much capital growth. The experience with Avanco Resources demonstrates how wrong that thinking was and also validates BRWM’s policy of investing in unquoted investments (a strategy that would not have worked in an equivalent open-ended fund).”
LondonMetric Property (LMP), the £4.3bn acquisitive logistics fund, has bought a 9.1% stake in Value and Indexed Property Income (VIP), the £80m long-lease commercial property fund. LMP’s purchase of 3.7m shares on 3 December came on the same day as VIP’s co-manager and co-founder Matthew Oakeshott sold 2.5m shares at 204p. At 31 March he held 10.9m shares giving him 24% of the company. VIP shares jumped 7p, or 3.6%, to 204p this morning. In October LMP bought a 9.5% stake in Schroder Real Estate (SREI) which it subsequently lifted to 11%. Earlier this year it bought Urban Logistics, the latest in a string of deals in the past three years that it has seen it also acquire LXI REIT and CT Property Trust.
RM Infrastructure Income (RMII), the £48m lending fund two years into a wind-down, says it is poised to see loans accounting for 34% of net asset value to be repaid, enabling it to make a return of capital to shareholders through a share tender offer early next year. The borrower behind its largest loan has repaid the debt at par with the company receiving £15.1m. It also plans to sell a £5m holding in Voyage Care BondCo as the secured loans are bought back by the issuer this month. This means 57% of the company’s loans have been recovered since it entered wind-down in December 2023. However, £11.2m of loans to Empowered Brands (EB), marked at £9.7m in the accounts, are in technical default with interest currently paid “in-kind” with the issuance of further bonds. The company, which is managed by Gore Street Energy (GSF) activist RM Funds, will consult with shareholders on whether to advance up to £3m to the borrower. It said this was to help fund growth initiatives that should protect EB’s assets and enable a quicker return of capital. RMII, which stood at a 21% discount to NAV on Friday, rose 2.4%, or 1.5p, to 64.5p.
GCP Asset Backed Income (GABI) has sold 43.7m shares, 20.3% of its total, as part of the third return of capital in its wind-down announced last month. The shares were redeemed at 76.63p giving a total payout of £33.2m. The money will be paid to shareholders by 19 December.
