Gavin Lumsden, IT Insider, 23 August 2024:
Stock markets have recovered from their panic over the state of the American economy at the start of the month, with Federal Reserve policy makers making a clear commitment to cut US interest rates next month.
With no major moves in equity indices, the average investment company discount, excluding 3i Group (III), remained at last week’s 13%, according to broker Winterflood, although as ever there are big individual risers and fallers in our first two tables..
The prospect of a cut in US interest rates put a fair wind behind private equity funds. Symphony International (SIHL), a poorly-performing Asia private equity fund that last September announced it would wind down, rose 15% in the week to Thursday on no discernible news on the portfolio.
Seraphim Space (SSIT) gained 11% as it recouped some of its declines in the selloff earlier in the month. The shares have rallied 57% this year but remain stuck on a 45% discount as investors remain wary of its early-stage, unquoted companies.
The sterling and dollar share classes of HarbourVest Global Private Equity (HVPE) rose about 5% in a week that saw it announce a 0.5% net asset value gain in July from valuation rises in its highly diversified £3.1bn portfolio. The shares have risen 16% in the past three months. While that still leaves them 34% below asset value, that’s narrower than the 41% average discount of the year and is enough to put them in our ‘expensive’ list (see last table)..
Downing Strategic Micro-Cap (DSM) fell 8% to 6.75p which might seem odd given shareholders are a step closer to receiving a further 61.7p per share in cash and dividend from the sale of its assets and wind-down after all resolutions at its annual general meeting were passed this week..
As James Carthew explained in June, ASIT’s term coincided with a tough patch for UK small-caps, with the result that its ordinary shareholders ended up doing less well than its zero holders, which is not what was meant to happen
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