David Lloyd investor ICG Enterprise Trust makes record proceeds and outperforms
Listed private equity fund the ICG Enterprise Trust has announced it generated record proceeds in the first half of this year, receiving £117m from the sale of various investments.
The trust, which invests in other private equity funds as well as making its own investments alongside funds, increased the underlying value of its portfolio to 937p per share, generating a total return of 8.7 per cent between February and July.
The largest 30 underlying companies in its portfolio – including TDR Capital-owned David Lloyd leisure centres and Graphite Capital-backed Laine Pub Company – grew earnings by 15 per cent.
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“The portfolio is well positioned with strong underlying profit growth and realisation activity continuing to drive performance,” said Emma Osborne, head of private equity fund investments at ICG.
“Whilst reinvesting capital in the current market is challenging, our flexible strategy enables us to adapt the mix of investments to where we see best relative value.”
Formerly the Graphite Enterprise Trust, the listed fund was renamed at the end of 2015 when FTSE 250 asset manager ICG bought the private equity funds investment branch of Graphite Capital. Its shares were up 3.18 per cent at the time of writing.
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Over the six month period and over the past 10 years, the ICG Enterprise Trust has outperformed the FTSE All-Share in terms of both its share price increase and the rise in underlying value of the assets.
ICG Enterprise’s largest sale in the first half of the year was of Graphite Capital-backed tyre company Micheldever, which made the trust £36m in a £215m deal.
ICG Enterprise also invested £65m during the six-month period, in funds managed by names such as RAC owner CVC Capital Partners and HgCapital.
Although the trust is primarily focused on continental Europe, it noted it has increased its weighting to the US and reduced its weighting to the UK.
Part of this is due to the move to ICG, which has a more global focus than Graphite, but ICG also noted that “the US is the largest and most developed private equity market in the world, and we believe will provide the portfolio with attractive returns and further geographic diversification”.
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