A weak performance from listed small-cap assets acquired along with Touchstone Innovations forced IP Group (IPO) to impair £203m of goodwill last year. However, even after stripping that out, the early-stage investment specialist incurred a £91m loss and a negative £76m return on the hard net asset value of the group’s portfolio.
Net portfolio losses came in at £48.4m, compared with gains of £94.2m in the prior year, as unrealised losses on the revaluation of investments more than trebled. Diurnal (DNL), Circassia (CIR) and Xeros (XSG) were the worst offenders, their impact only partially offset by increases in unquoted investments including Garrison Technology and Featurespace.
The group deployed £101m in equity and debt purchases, while its largest holding, life sciences specialist Oxford Nanopore, raised £100m primarily from Asian investors to fund further research and development. It latterly raised $50m (£37.8m) from US biopharmaceutical group Amgen, whose subsidiary has used nanapore technology to sequence several hundred genomes. Portfolio cash realisations also rose more than four-fold to £30m, arising from 14 investments.
IP GROUP (IPO) | ||||
ORD PRICE: | 88.8p | MARKET VALUE: | £ 940m | |
TOUCH: | 88.5-88.8p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 146p | LOW: 85p |
DIVIDEND YIELD: | NIL | PE RATIO: | NA | |
NET ASSET VALUE: | 115p | NET CASH: | £24m |
Year to 31 Dec | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
2014 | 28.4 | 9.5 | 2.0 | nil |
2015 | 98.3 | 75.1 | 13.7 | nil |
2016 | 7.6 | -14.8 | -2.4 | nil |
2017 | 104 | 53.4 | 7.1 | nil |
2018 | -36.2 | -294 | -27.7 | nil |
% change | - | - | - | - |
Ex-div: | na | |||
Payment: | na |