British land has announced a £50m refurbishment of its Meadhowhall Shopping Centre (pictured), to mark its 25th anniversary. The refurbishment, which focuses on the centre’s interior, starts in Autumn 2015 and will be completed by the end of 2017, and will create distinct ‘districts’ within the centre. The works will largely be completed out of hours to enable all […]
SVG Capital has announced that Red & Black Lux S.à r.l., an investment company owned by Permira, has its remaining stake in Hugo Boss for £78m. This follows on from the sale of a 6% stake, in August 2014, for £69.4m. SVI : SVG Capital sells remaining holding in Hugo Boss for £78m
Shaftesbury has announced that it has secured a new £130m term loan with Aviva Commercial Finance Limited for 15 years until March 2030.The loan is secured on certain properties held in a subsidiary company and has a fixed interest rate of 3.2% throughout the term. On drawing down the loan from Aviva, Shaftesbury is to […]
Black Sea Property has sent its shareholders a circular to convene an extraordinary general meeting at which it wants them to approve proposals to recommence investment activities in the residential real estate, holiday homes, commercial real estate and distressed real estate markets of Bulgaria, to adopt a new investing policy, appoint a new investment advisor, extend the […]
Juridica has published results for the year ended 31 December 2014. Over this period the net asset value fell from $2.02 to $1.66. 31 cents of this fall relates to a distribution (20p = 31 cents) made to shareholders so the loss on the net asset value over the year was 5 cents. The 5 […]
RAB Special Situations’ results for 2014 show its net asset value falling from 16.83p to 11.43p – almost a third. 1.36p of the fall came from preparing the accounts on the basis that the fund is no longer a going concern. This was done on the basis that the Board thinks shareholders will vote against […]
Elliott Advisors, which holds a 12% stake in Alliance Trust, has today called for three directors of its choosing to be put onto the Alliance Trust Board. They say they have concerns over corporate governance which they have raised with the company but didn’t feel they were getting a meaningful response. The three nominees are Anthony […]
Over the course of 2014 Fidelity European Values generated a total return on net assets of 5.1% – well ahead of the 0.2% return generated by the FTSE All-World Europe ex UK Index, its benchmark. Shareholders did even better as the fund’s discount narrowed from 7.9% to 4.6%, pushing the return to shareholders up to […]
Haversham Holdings, which Marwyn invested in on its listing last year, has been linked to a £1.2bn bid for British Car Auctions, the owners of the webuyanycar.com website. An article in today’s Times says the two companies are in advanced talks. Haversham Holdings has confirmed that it is in “very advanced discussions which might lead to […]
Real Estate Investors says its EPRA net asset value rose by 4% over the course of 2014 – from 59.1p to 61.3p. Its EPRA earnings per share were negative although less so than in 2013 – loss per share of 0.3p vs. 0.4p in 2013. The dividend has been hiked by 50% however to make […]
New research has revealed which investment trust sectors have delivered most for investors over the past 20 years and which have left them short changed. http://www.portfolio-adviser.com/news/product-news/top-investments-trusts-of-last-20-years-revealed
Alpha Pyrenees has published results for the year that ended on 31 December 2014. The fund’s net asset value has been declining in recent years – falling from 28.5p at the end of June 2013 to 22.8p at 31 December 2013 to 12p at 30 June 2014 and finally 6p at 31 December 2014. The […]
For the year to the end of December 2014, Canadian and General’s net asset value per share total return was 8.4% and the return to shareholders was 13.3%. By comparison, the total return of its benchmark, the S&P/TSX Composite Index, was 10.6% during the same period. During 2014, CGI paid two regular quarterly taxable dividends that aggregated to $0.24 per common […]
Japan Residential Investment Company has published results for the year ended 30 November 2014 that show its net asset value fell by 2.6p to 56.1p. This fall was entirely down to the weakness of the yen against sterling. in yen terms the net asset value rose by 5.7% over the year. The dividend for the […]
Baillie Gifford Shin Nippon has published results for the year ended 31 January 2015. The company’s net asset value return lagged that of the MSCI Japan Small Cap Index by 1.5% over the year, returning 11.7% against the Index’s 13.2%. Shareholders suffered as the company’s shares went from a premium to a discount of 6.6% – […]
NextEnergy Solar is paying £3.2m to expand its existing plant at Bilsham by 2.6MWp and up to a further £22.9m to acquire 21.2MWp Langenhoe solar power plant in Essex which is being constructed under an Engineering, Procurement and Construction contract negotiated by NESF’s investment adviser, NextEnergy Capital Limited. Langenhoe was connected to the grid on 4 March 2015. Langenhoe will […]
HICL Infrastructure has announced the acquisition of three stakes in BSF (Building Schools for the Future) projects – the predecessors of the PF2 type deals announced yesterday. The stakes it’s buying are a n40% interest in the Salford & Wigan Phase 1 BSF([1]) Project, a 40% interest in the Salford & Wigan Phase 2 BSF […]
NB Private Equity has announced results for the year ended 31 December 2014 and an estimated net asset value for 28 February 2015. The total return on net asset value over the course of 2014 was 16.2%. The discount narrowed and this propelled the total return to shareholders up to 26.9%. They say strong performance […]
International Public Partnerships is investing c£8m and HICL Infrastructure is investing £7.2m to take equity stakes (45% in HICL’s case) in a £103m project -the Priority Schools Building Programme (“PSBP”) North East Batch Project. The national PSBP has been set up to address the needs of the schools most in need of urgent repair and will build or […]
Witan’s results for the year ended 31 December 2014 show them generating a return on net assets of 6.6%, 1.1% ahead of their benchmark (a composite of four different regional FTSE All-World Indices) and well ahead of the 1.2% return on the FTSE All-Share Index. The share price total return was 15.1%, enhanced by the move […]
Murray International’s results for the year ended 31 December 2014 have been published. Over the year the total return on net assets was 3% and the return to shareholders was 1.7%, unfortunately both these figures were behind the 7.5% return on the company’s benchmark (40% of the FTSE World UK Index and 60% of the […]
Empiric Student Property has acquired a student accommodation development in Aberdeen: Spital Court Studios. The deal is to buy the freehold of a forward funded development in Aberdeen currently being developed into purpose-built student accommodation by local developer, Scape Homes. The site is located on the corner of St Peter Street and St Peter Lane, within half a mile […]
SEGRO has sold Energy Park, its recently completed office development outside Milan to Hines Italia SGR for €118.7m. This price is 5% more than their value at the end of December 2014 and works out at a 7.3% initial yield. Energy Park is a fully-let, 61,400 sqm suburban office park built by SEGRO and completed […]
LMS Capital is continuing the process of realising its portfolio and handing back the proceeds to shareholders. Its net asset value rose from 88p to 93p over the course of 2014. They handed back £40m to shareholders by way of a tender offer. They made sales totalling £45.9m, £31.8m of this came from the sale […]
Invesco Perpetual UK Smaller Companies, which has long been plagued by a wide discount, is to switch focus to become an income fund. The Board, chaired by Ian Barby (pictured), consulted holders of more than 50% of the shares before making this proposal. The first element of this switch is a more than doubling of the dividend […]
JPMorgan Claverhouse beat the FTSE All-Share index over 2014 by a narrow margin – delivering a total return on net assets of 2.1% vs. the Index’s 1.2%. The return to shareholders was 4% however as the fund’s discount narrowed from 3.4% to 5.4%. The total dividend for the year was upped from 19.5p to 20.0p. […]
Empiric Student Property’s acquisition spree continues with the £11.92m purchase of the Ballet School in Glasgow. The Ballet School is a conversion of the listed former home of the Scottish Ballet, on Willowbank Crescent, comprising 103 self-contained studios of various sizes, which was completed in 2013. The property has been bought from the developer, CCG (Scotland) […]
Raven Russia has announced results for the year that ended on 31 December 2014. Over the period the company’s fully diluted, adjusted net asset per share fell to 106cents from 126cents. The proposed final distribution, equivalent to 3.5 pence per share, makes a total of 6 pence per share for 2014, a 20% increase on 2013. They intend to […]
Marwyn Value Investors has made a new investment today into Zegona Communications. They are paying £12m (about 6% of MVI’s NAV) for a 40% stake in the company. Zegona is listing on AIM. It will be run by two ex Virgin Media executives, Eamonn O’Hare (Chairman and CEO) and Robert Samuelson (COO). Eamonn was Chief Financial Officer […]
Hg Capital’s results for 2014 show a 12.8% return on net assets and a 9.6% return on share price – well ahead of the 1.2% return on the FTSE All-Share Index. the final dividend is being increased from 29p to 32p to take the full year dividend to 51p (including a 19p special dividend). £83m […]
