Syncona (SYNC), the £608m life sciences fund seeking to return £250m of capital to compensate shareholders for its steep share price discount, suffered a 1.7% fall in net asset value (NAV) in the six months to 30 September. This was caused by the £15.9m write-down of its investment in the CRT Pioneer Fund, a legacy, non-core holding that had to write off one of its oncology programmes. NAV per share slipped from 170.9p at 31 March to 167.9p at 30 September leaving the shares at 100p on a 40% discount to NAV. The investment company reported clinical progress across the rest of its maturing life sciences portfolio with 76.8% invested in commercial, late-stage clinical and clinical-stage companies. It said public market conditions were improving with the S&P Biotech (XBI) index up 25% this year at a four-year high. It deployed £17.2m into the portfolio, down from £90m a year ago, reducing its capital pool to £270.7m from £287.7m in March.

ICG Enterprise (ICGT), a £950m private equity fund, has ended its 12-year investment in David Lloyd. It received £20m on the disposal of its stake in the premium health club operator, its tenth largest holding at 1.4% of net assets. ICGT co-invested with TDR Capital and generated a 28% annualised return with the sale in line with the latest valuation. Together with the disposal of its stake in ice cream maker Froneri last month, it lifts ICGT’s liquidity to £243m from £187m in July and cuts gearing, or borrowing, from 5% to 1%. The shares stand on a 26% discount to net asset value.

Custodian Property Income REIT (CREI), the £379m, 7%-yielding UK real estate investment trust, saw net asset value (NAV) rise 2.2p to 98.9p in the three months to 30 September with its £456.3m portfolio returning a total of 3.8% with the 1.5p per share dividend, covered by 1.5p of earnings, included. The rise was due to valuation increases across all key property sectors, said fund manager Richard Shepherd-Cross. “Despite uncertainty leading into the November 2025 Budget, the company has continued to deliver another quarter of stable earnings, fully covering our dividend, with like-for-like passing rent growing by 2.3% through active asset management initiatives and the leasing of vacant space. Logic suggests that the strong performance of our underlying assets should flow through to narrowing the share price discount,” which now stands at 17% with the share price at 81.8p.