Rutherford Health preparation to wind-up

RNS Number : 6988N

Schroder UK Public Private Tst plc

06 June 2022

 

Schroder UK Public Private Trust plc (the "Company")

Rutherford Health preparation to wind-up

This announcement contains inside information

The Company (LSE: SUPP) is disappointed to announce that the Board of Directors of Rutherford Health plc ("Rutherford"), a private oncology provider based in the UK and a portfolio company, has resolved to take steps to wind-up the company and appoint the official receiver as liquidator.

The Company's holding in Rutherford was valued at £22.8 million as at 31 March 2022. As it is uncertain if the liquidation process will result in proceeds for the Company, the Company's AIFM will write-off the book value of the holding effective as at 6 June 2022, the date of the concurrent announcement of the indicative unaudited daily NAV per share. The write-off will reduce the Company's NAV per share by 2.5p. Tim Creed and Roger Doig, Portfolio Managers of the Company, commented:

"Since assuming portfolio management of the Company, the Schroders team has spent a significant amount of time working with Rutherford to improve its financial situation and operational performance, but regrettably today's sad announcement could not be avoided.

While there were a number of factors contributing to Rutherford's failure, the flawed expansion strategy pursued by the company in the initial development phase from 2015 to 2019 laid the ground for an ultimately unsustainable funding need. Over £240 million was spent in developing four oncology therapy centres with a significant amount of the capital expenditure spent on the site requirements and the equipment required to offer proton beam therapy. While there is rising evidence that proton therapy is a better clinical option for many patients, it remains a service which still has very limited reimbursement in the UK. Building and operating four centres led to a high and unsustainable cash burn which ultimately resulted in today's announcement as Rutherford has been unable to attract sufficient new funding to continue trading.  

We would like to thank the Chairman Dr Mark Jackson and Interim CEO Sean Sullivan who did an outstanding job managing a very difficult situation since taking over in December 2021. We put in a  new leadership team which vigorously pursued multiple options over the last months to seek to preserve value for shareholders but ultimately could not correct the inherited severe underlying challenges in the business.

Despite the failure of Rutherford, we are positive on the outlook of Schroder UK Public Private Trust plc. Challenges have been resolved and many successful exits realised. The Company has made a number of new private and public investments and we remain highly confident in the portfolio's potential to generate long-term shareholder value."

Enquiries:

Schroder Investment Management Limited

Estelle Bibby (Press)	Tel: [phone]
John Spedding	Tel: [phone]

 

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