Oakley Capital Investments has published results for the six-months ended 30 June 2024. The NAV has been out for a while but we now have more detail on the drivers of returns (26p or 4% return on NAV, would have been 6% but for adverse currency movements). The return to shareholders over the first half was 5%. In a busy period for the trust, £184m was invested and idealista and Ocean Technologies have been sold since the period end.

• Alerce (Origin I) – £9m – an Iberian transport and logistics software business
• Steer Automotive Group (Fund V) – £66m – the UK’s leading independent auto collision repair group
• Horizons Optical (Origin I) – £9m – a medical software provider based in Spain
• ProductLife Group (Fund V) – £40m – a France-based provider of regulatory and compliance services to the global life sciences industry
• Follow-on investments – £43m – bolt-on acquisitions made by existing portfolio companies including Phenna Group, Affinitas, Thomas’ London Day Schools and Liberty Dental Group
• Venture investments – £17m – investments made in portfolio companies within Oakley Touring Venture Fund and Oakley PROfounders Fund III

Since end June:

Investments

• Vitroconnect (Origin II) – £20m – a broadband open access platform based in Germany. The transaction completed in July 2024
• I-TRACING (Fund V) – £39m – a cybersecurity firm based in France. The transaction is expected to complete in H2 2024

Realisations

• idealista – (Fund IV) – the sale of the southern European real estate classifieds platform was agreed during the period. The transaction is expected to complete in H2 2024 and OCI’s look-through share of proceeds is anticipated to be c. £70m
• Ocean Technologies Group (Fund IV) – agreed sale of leading independent software provider to the maritime industry. The transaction is expected to complete in H2 2024.

The underlying portfolio is delivering year-on-year organic EBITDA growth of 14% and is valued on an average valuation multiple of 16.4x EV/EBITDA (same as end December 2023). The average net debt/EBITDA ratio was 3.9x (FY2023: 4.2x).

The key drivers of NAV growth were:

• Portfolio companies (+41 pence): valuation gains in the underlying investments with IU Group (+8 pence), Phenna Group (+7 pence), Dexters (+6 pence) and Cegid (+5 pence) being the largest contributors
• Foreign exchange impact (-12 pence), largely attributable to a 2.4% change in EUR:GBP

The trust had £128m of cash and undrawn credit facilities of £56m as at 30 June 2024. Total outstanding commitments to existing Oakley Funds were £805m, to be deployed over the next five years

OCI : Oakley Capital Investments makes solid progress in busy first half of 2024