Tom Aylott, Citywire Investment Trust Insider, 17 October 2025:
A lack of demand for private equity trusts has kept their discounts wide this year, but investors should look below the surface at the many lucrative deals taking place in the sector, according to Winterflood analyst Shavar Halberstadt.
Just yesterday, HgCapital (HGT) announced it would be selling payment software company GTreasury to Ripple for over $1bn, with sale proceeds of £30m representing a 97% uplift on its initial investment..
And HGT wasn’t the only private equity trust making deals yesterday, with Oakley Capital (OCI) selling its stake in home decor chain At Home for £16m – some 30% above its carrying value..
The £945m trust was active in making new acquisitions too, investing £10m into Italian healthcare insurance provider ONHC on Tuesday and £9m into padel equipment manufacturer NOX on Wednesday..
James Carthew, head of investment companies research at QuotedData, agreed that investors would do well to recognise the recent deals made by Oakley and HgCapital, which are not reflected in their share prices.
‘These uplifts remind us that private equity NAVs may be meaningfully understated,’ he said. ‘The discounts that these trusts trade on – which already look absurdly wide – are, in reality, even wider than that.’
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