Primary Health Properties (PHP) has won the battle for rival NHS landlord Assura (AGR) with 62.9% of Assura shareholders accepting its cash and shares offer by yesterday’s 1pm deadline. The offer of £460m in cahs and a 48% stake in the enlarged business has been declared unconditional while the rival £1.7bn private equity cash offer from KKR and Stonepeak Partners has lapsed after gaining only 16.56% support. A number of large Assura investors, including Schroders, Aberdeen, TR Property (TRY) investment trust, Gravis and Baillie Gifford, had backed the merger with PHP to avoid selling out at the bottom of the property cycle.
New River REIT (NRR) has launched a share placing to institutional investors and announced a buyback of up to 47.7m of its discounted shares at 75p that will add around 4% to net tangible assets (NTA) per share. This is in response to South African real investment trust Growthpoint Properties’ decision to sell 71% of its 14.2% stake in the UK retail park and shopping centre investor. The buyback will also increase the level of debts or loan to value by 4%, returning it to the 42% level it was at in 31 March before the £58.8m disposal of Abbey Centre in Northern Ireland. This is a temporary rise above a 40% LTV limit which the company indicated it would resolve through a further asset sale.
Aberdeen Asian Income Fund (AAIF) underperformed in the first half of the year with a 2.2% total investment return below the 4.5% from its MSCI Asia Pacific ex-Japan index benchmark. The £339m investment trust, which saw its lead manager Yoojeong Oh replaced with Isaac Thong from JP Morgan Asset Management in March, said the lower return was caused by its underweight to Chinese internet stocks, which had worked well previously but had affected performance this year. It was pleased to see a total shareholder return of 6.3% after a narrowing of the discount of the share price to net asset value from 12.5% to 9.3%. The company said its growth in net asset value continued to outperform the index over three and five years. As part of a refined strategy of balancing income and growth, the manager added NetEase and Alibaba to the portfolio. The changes have resulted in a rise in the portfolio’s weighted average return on equity, profit margins and yield. The shares yield 6.7% after the adoption of an enhanced dividend policy in January.
Diverse Income (DIVI), the £236m UK equity income trust managed by Gervais Williams and Martin Turner at Premier Miton, outperformed in the year to 31 May with a total investment return of 12.8% that beat the UK stock market return of 9.7%. This was despite the managers’ focus on AIM and smaller company stocks which have suffered four years of selling by domestic investors but have begun to receive the attention of more international investors. Read our whole story here.
GCP Asset Backed Income (GABI), a £137m debt fund in wind-down, says since 30 June it has sold one of the problem “rump” loans identified in last year’s realisation plan. The disposal was made in line with the December valuation. The company is considering the scope for further distributions after receiving £12m in loan repayments and cash realisations in the first half. It has returned £188m to shareholders since a discontinuation vote in May 2024. Net asset value of the portfolio of 24 loans rose 1.4% to £172m in the first half of the year with NAV per share of 79.79p at 30 June.
Real Estate Investors (RLE), the Midlands real estate investment half-way through a three-year wind-down, has sold £7.7m of properties this year with £3.6m in the pipeline. In a half-year trading update, the company says private investor demand is positive but demand for large properties remains subdued, so the company is refraining from marketing its larger assets until activity levels improve hopefully in the fourth quarter of this year.
Lowland Investment Company (LWI), the £319m UK equity income trust managed by Janus Henderson, has published a circular for a general meeting of shareholders on 10 September to renew its share buyback authority. The shares stand on a discount of nearly 11% to net asset value.
