Henderson Smaller Companies (HSL), the £549m underperforming UK small-cap investment trust whose fund manager Neil Hermon retired last month after 23 years, has passed its triennial continuation vote. At the annual general meeting yesterday it gained the support of 95% of votes on turnout of 38.6%.
Riverstone Energy (RSE) is to return £190m in a major step in its managed wind-down through the compulsory redemption of 71% of its shares. Over 17.2m shares will be bought back on 22 October at £11.01 which was their net asset value (NAV) at 30 June. This follows the sale of several large listed holdings last month.
Weiss Korea Opportunity Fund (WKOF) is to pay out £132.9m to shareholders as it nears the end of its wind-down having yesterday compulsorily purchased 21.7m shares at their net asset value of 161.15p.
Finsbury Growth & Income (FGT) fund manager Nick Train yesterday bought another 25,000 shares at an average price of 856.9p, lifting his stake to 5.7m shares or 4.3% of the company. The £1.1bn former top-performing UK equity income trust has struggled in the past five years and stands on a 7% discount to net asset value.
Shares in Unite (UTG), the £3.3bn student accommodation provider, drop 5% after the company just missed its targets by selling 95% of beds for the new academic year on 4% higher rents that lifted its LSAV fund 0.4% in the third quarter but left its USAF fund flat. Last year it sold 97.5% of rooms and grew rents by 8.2%. Chief executive Joe Lister said Unite enjoyed a strong clearing period and outperformed the sector. “Looking ahead, the outlook remains robust, underpinned by growing demand from school leavers and stabilising international admissions,” he said. The shares slipped 36p to 670p.
Schroder Japan (SJG) issues a brief statement to announce its annual report for the year to 31 July. The £333m investment trust says it beat the Topix index with a 6.8% underlying investment return versus the 4.8% from the benchmark. This takes total outperformance during the six years under fund manager Masaki Taketsume to 17%. Exposure to small and mid-cap stocks and undervalued companies helped drive performance over the year, it said. Following the adoption of an enhanced dividend, the company pay outs out 4% of net assets each year.
Molten Ventures VCT (MVCT), a £106m venture capital trust investing in high-growth technology companies, has published a prospectus for its plans to issue up to £10m of new shares with an over-allotment facility of an additional £20m if there is sufficient demand.
IP Group (IPO) rises 2.6% to 54.2p after Monolith, an AI software provider spun out of Imperial College in which it held a 12.3% stake, is sold to Coreweave, the $64bn Nasdaq-listed AI cloud computing provider. “The sale of Monolith marks another positive exit from our deeptech portfolio,” said chief executive Greg Smith.
