Octopus Titan VCT (OTV2), the struggling £403m technology venture capital trust, has decided not to declare an interim dividend after posting another half-year of underperformance.
“We recognise that this outcome will be disappointing to shareholders; however, dividends are ordinarily a distribution of investment gains (of which a material proportion should be realised rather than unrealised), which have not been achieved over the six-month period ended in June 2025 or in recent years,” chair Tom Leader said.
In the first half of the year the £786m portfolio fell 4.6% with net asset value (NAV) per share of 47.7p at 30 June down 2.3p from 31 December after adjusting for the 0.5p per share dividend paid in May.
Leader blamed the market turbulence caused by US tariff policies and the weak dollar for dampening investor sentiment and depressing venture capital activity and unquoted company valuations.
It said with this further decline in NAV, the five-year tax-free annual compound return for shareholders excluding 30% income tax relief was now minus 3.7%. Since the high point for the portfolio at the end of 2021, shareholders have suffered a total loss of 42% including dividends. The shares have fallen from a peak of 108.5p to 18p to a 62% discount below the new NAV.
Earlier this month, the company concluded a year-long strategic review by cutting its fund manager’s fee by 17% and slashing the notice it needs to give to terminate Octopus Investments’ contract from three years to 12 months.
