Oxford Nanopore completes £109.5m financing

RNS Number : 5148Y

IP Group PLC

02 January 2020

 

FOR RELEASE ON

02 January 2020

THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONSTITUTES INSIDE INFORMATION AS STIPULATED UNDER THE MARKET ABUSE REGULATION (EU) NO.596/2014.

Portfolio company Oxford Nanopore Technologies announces £109.5m of investment and secondary share sales

IP Group cash realisations in 2019 increased to more than £75m across multiple portfolio holdings

IP Group plc (LSE: IPO) ("IP Group" or "the Group"), the developer of intellectual property-based businesses, notes that its portfolio company Oxford Nanopore Technologies Limited ("Oxford Nanopore") has announced that it has raised £29.3 million of new capital and facilitated the secondary sale of £80.2 million of shares, an aggregate investment of £109.5 million.

Following completion of the transaction, IP Group will hold an undiluted beneficial stake of 16.4% in Oxford Nanopore, the company behind the only real-time DNA/RNA sequencer that can sequence any read length and is fully scalable from smaller portable formats to larger devices for population-scale sequencing.  The directors expect that this transaction will result in a fair value gain to the Group of approximately £12 million compared with Oxford Nanopore's last financing round in March 2018 and that the Group's holding will be valued at approximately £264 million. IP Group will realise £22.0 million cash from a partial sale of its holding in Oxford Nanopore as part of the secondary element of the transaction.

In addition, IP Group announces that cash realisations during 2019 totalled more than £75 million compared to the £30 million achieved in 2018. This excludes the £22 million partial realisation of Oxford Nanopore noted above. As a result, the Group anticipates that gross cash resources at 31 December 2019 will be significantly in excess of the £161 million reported at 30 June 2019.

Alan Aubrey, Chief Executive of IP Group plc, said: "We're delighted to see another successful fundraising for Oxford Nanopore which rounds off an impressive year of commercial success and technical validation of nanopore sequencing. IP Group has continued to focus attention this year on generating realisations from our maturing portfolio and we're pleased to report that cash exits in 2019 were more than double the amount recorded in 2018, leaving the business well-funded and well positioned for 2020."

Oxford Nanopore noted that funds were raised from both new investors and existing shareholders from the US, Europe and Asia Pacific. The fundraising brings the total primary investment in Oxford Nanopore to approximately £480 million. Further information on the fundraising will be made available in due course.

Last month, Oxford Nanopore confirmed that its technology had been selected for the population-scale 'Genome Program' launched by Abu Dhabi's Department of Health. The project aims to be the first of its kind worldwide to provide citizens with their own high-quality genome as a baseline and aims to incorporate genomic data into healthcare management. Among other developments during 2019, Oxford Nanopore users reported new methods for rapid cancer and infectious disease characterisation, HLA tissue typing and food safety.

The full announcement from Oxford Nanopore follows.

For more information, please contact:

IP Group plc	www.ipgroupplc.com
Alan Aubrey, Chief Executive Officer Greg Smith, Chief Financial Officer Liz Vaughan-Adams, Communications	[phone] [phone]/[phone]
Charlotte Street Partners
Andrew Wilson	[phone]
David Gaffney	[phone]

Notes for editors

About IP Group

IP Group is a leading intellectual property commercialisation company which focuses on evolving great ideas, mainly from its partner universities, into world-changing businesses. The Group has pioneered a unique approach to developing these ideas and the resulting businesses by providing access to business building expertise, capital (through its 100%-owned FCA-authorised subsidiaries IP Capital and Parkwalk Advisors), networks, recruitment and business support. IP Group has a strong track record of success and its portfolio comprises holdings in early stage to mature businesses across life sciences and technology. IP Group is listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange under the code IPO.

Group holdings in portfolio companies reflect the undiluted beneficial equity interest excluding debt, unless otherwise explicitly stated.

For more information, please visit our website at www.ipgroupplc.com.

ENDS

Oxford Nanopore announces £109.5M ($144.5M) in investment and share sales

2 January 2020:  Oxford Nanopore has raised £29.3M ($38.6M) in new capital and additionally facilitated the sale of £80.2M ($105.9M) in secondary shares, resulting in total gross proceeds of £109.5M ($144.5M).

These funds have been raised internationally and include both new investors and existing shareholders, from the US, Europe and Asia/Pacific.

This brings the total primary investment in Oxford Nanopore to £480M to date.

Further information on Oxford Nanopore's fundraising will be made available in due course.

The Company made substantial progress in 2019; from scaling up to population-scale sequencing with PromethION, to accurate, rapid testing in cancer and infectious disease.  Read 19 highlights of 2019. https://nanoporetech.com/about-us/news/19-highlights-2019 

Assumes exchange rate of 1.32 at 31st December 2019.

 

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