Augmentum Fintech (AUGM) has urged shareholders to vote for the £185.7m cash bid from Norwegian buyout group Verdane the board recommended last month as the best way for investors to realise some value in the short term. The investment company has published a circular detailing how shareholders can send in proxy votes for the meetings on 15 April to approve the deal. It requires three quarters of shareholder votes for the acquisition to proceed but has been criticised for being priced at a 30% discount to net asset value, though 27% more than the share price before the announcement. Commenting at the time on the board recommendation on 25 February, James Carthew at QuotedData hoped a counter-bidder would emerge, saying: “Shareholders should be ready to vote to block this deal if it does not.”
India Capital Growth Fund (IGC) has backed Liontrust Asset Management’s acquisition of its fund manager River Global Holdings announced this week saying the merger “will broaden” the investment and distribution resources available to the £95m mid-cap equities fund standing on a 12% discount. Chair Elisabeth Scott was “pleased” that the investment team led by Gaurav Narain in Mumbai would continue unchanged.
Life Science REIT (LABS) shareholders yesterday approved the recommended £150m cash and shares offer made by British Land in January.
Ground Rents Income (GRIO) has sold freehold interests in Manchester and Southampton for a combined £4.58m which it will use to repay some of its loan to Santander bank. The sale at small 0.6% discount to net asset value pushed the shares 1.5p, or 8.7% higher, to 18.75p. However, this is still below the 24p they stood at before crashing at the end of January when the government imposed a £250 limit on the annual charge that leaseholders pay freeholders, a move the winding-down company estimated could slash its income by 26%.
New Star Investment Fund (NSI), the £88m flexible fund of funds mostly held by former employees of New Star Asset Management, including founder John Duffield, generated a total underlying investment return of 9.1% in the six months to 31 December, taking net asset value NAV per share to 184.3p. By comparison, the Investment Association’s Mixed Investment 40-85% Shares index gained 8.8%, the MSCI AC World Total Return index gained 13.5% in sterling while the MSCI UK Total Return index rose 13.8%. In response to the interims, the shares rose 3.2% to 129p at a 33% discount.
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