12th May 2016 09:34
LONDON (Alliance News) - JZ Capital Partners Ltd, the London-listed fund which invests in US and European micro-cap companies and US real estate, on Thursday said it's confident of opportunities to sell or otherwise make an exit from investments in the year ahead.
"We are confident the year ahead will again provide a number of realisation opportunities, leaving us well positioned to take advantage of opportunities to expand our increasingly diversified portfolio," David Zalaznick, founder and investment adviser, said in a statement.
Zalaznick said JZ's balance sheet is in "excellent" shape after a number of measures designed to strengthen the company's finances. Chairman David Macfarlane highlighted JZ's move to roll over USD61.1 million of 8% zero dividend preference shares due in June 2016 into 4.75% ZDPs due October 2022 as one way the balance sheet was bolstered.
"It has been an active and successful twelve months of investment for the company, an excellent year for realisations and the ZDP rollover has strengthened the company's balance sheet further," Macfarlane said.
The remaining USD45.6 million of ZDPs due June 2016 are fully covered by an issue of UK gilts, JZ said.
In a statement, JZ said it received USD205.1 million from realising investments in the 12 months ended February 29, primarily through the sale of three US micro-cap companies and the secondary sale of its stake in some European portfolio companies.
JZ invested USD272.7 million across the US micro-cap (USD103.1 million), European micro-cap (USD59.3 million), and real estate portfolios (USD104.7 million) and other investments (USD5.6 million) in the 12-month period.
The US real estate portfolio now accounts for more than 30% of JZ's investments, meaning its "strategic importance" is growing.
JZ reported pre-dividend and pre-diluted growth in net asset value per share grew of 6.3% to USD11.46 in the 12 months. Post-dilution, the NAV per share fell by 3.5% to USD10.49. That was because the company issued new shares during the year to raise USD116 million.
"The growth derived mainly from capital gains and accrued income on investments to US micro-cap, real estate and European micro-cap, offset by expenses, taxation and the diluting effect from the issue," according to analysts at Liberum.
Shares in JZ were down 0.17 pence at 398.33p Thursday.
By Samuel Agini; [email protected]; @samuelagini
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