Interim Management Statement - 1st Quarter

RNS Number : 6207D

Income & Growth VCT (The) PLC

20 February 2020

 

The Income & Growth VCT plc

(the "Company")

INTERIM MANAGEMENT STATEMENT

For the quarter ended 31 December 2019

The Income & Growth VCT plc presents an Interim Management Statement for the quarter ended 31 December 2019.  The statement also includes relevant financial information between the end of the quarter and the date of this statement.

NET ASSET VALUE AND TOTAL RETURN PER SHARE

	At 31 December 2019	At 30 September 2019
Net assets attributable to shareholders	£78,706,606	£81,728,079
Shares in issue	102,849,911	103,302,857
Net asset value (NAV) per share	76.53p	79.12p
Cumulative dividends paid to date per share since inception	117.50p	113.00p
Total return per share since inception (NAV basis)	194.03p	192.12p

Shareholders should note the NAV per share as at 31 December 2019 above does not include the impact of the two disposals that have occurred after the quarter end, as reported at the end of this Statement.  If so, in isolation to any other factors that could affect it, the NAV per share above would increase by 1.93p.

CHANGE OF DIRECTORS

On 18 October 2019, the Company announced that, due to personal circumstances, Colin Hook was stepping down from his role as Chairman of the Board and as a director of the Company with immediate effect.  The Company announced the appointment of Jonathan Cartwright, then an Independent Non-Executive Director and Chairman of the Audit Committee and Nomination and Remuneration Committee, as Chairman of the Board with immediate effect.

On 12 November 2019, the Company announced the appointment of Justin Ward as a Non-Executive Director of the Company.  The Board appointed Justin as Chairman of both the Audit Committee and the Nomination and Remuneration Committee with immediate effect, succeeding Jonathan Cartwright in these two roles.  Jonathan retained his membership of both committees.

On 12 February 2020, the Board announced the appointment of Maurice Helfgott as a Director and Chairman designate of the Company following Jonathan Cartwright's advice that he intends to step down as a Director and Chairman on 30 June 2020.  Maurice will be appointed Chairman on 1 July 2020.

FUNDRAISING

On 25 October 2019, the Company launched an Offer for Subscription ("Offer") to raise, up to £5 million, with an over-allotment facility to raise up to a further £5 million.  Following strong demand from investors, the Directors approved the use of the over-allotment facility on 14 December 2019.  The Offer became fully subscribed on 20 December 2019 and, following the allotment of 12,939,834 new Ordinary shares on 8 January 2020, which generated net funds of £9.66 million for the Company, the Offer was formally closed.

DIVIDENDS

On 18 October 2019, the Company paid a second interim dividend of 4.50 pence per share in respect of the year ended 30 September 2019, to Shareholders on the register on 27 September 2019.

SHARE BUY-BACKS

On 13 December 2019, the Company bought back 452,946 of its Ordinary shares at a price of 70.75 pence per share.

All shares bought back by the Company were subsequently cancelled.

INVESTMENT ACTIVITY

New investments

On 1 November 2019, the Company made a new investment of £1.54 million into Data Discovery Solutions Limited (trading as Active Navigation), a provider of enterprise-level file analysis software.

On 29 November 2019, the Company made a new investment of £0.96 million into IPV Limited, a developer of media asset management software.

On 13 December 2019, the Company made a new investment of £0.72 million into Bleach London Holdings Limited, an established and trusted brand in the hair colourants market.

Divestments

On 12 December 2019, the Company sold its investment in Redline Worldwide Limited, generating cash proceeds of £1.43 million. The realisation contributed, to date, to a return over the life of the investment of 1.6 times original cost. Deferred consideration of up to £0.26 million may be received over the next 30 months.

Divestments after the quarter end

On 7 February 2020, the Company's investment in Pattern Analytics Limited (trading as Biosite) was sold for proceeds of £2.65 million. Over the three years that this investment was held, these proceeds contributed to a multiple on cost of 1.5 times the original cost of investment. This realisation has had no material impact on the NAV per share as reported above.

On 13 February 2020, the Company sold its investment in Turner Topco Limited (trading as Auction Technology Group), generating cash proceeds of £5.27 million which, combined with returns received prior to a secondary buyout in June 2014, contributed to a multiple on original cost of 4.5 times over the 11 and a half years the investment was held. In isolation, the impact of this sale on the Company's NAV per share referred to above of 76.53p, would be an increase of 1.93p.

Other than as described above, there were no material events during the quarter and to the date of this announcement.

Please note that all of the information above is unaudited.

For further information, please contact:

Mobeus Equity Partners LLP, Company Secretary: 020 7024 7600.

 

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