26th Feb 2007 08:54
Charlemagne Capital Limited26 February 2007 26 February 2007 Charlemagne Capital to manage investments of Indian property specialist Naya Bharat Charlemagne Capital Limited ("Charlemagne" or the "Group"), the specialistemerging market fund management group, today announces that it is managing theinvestments of Indian property company, Naya Bharat Property Company plc (" NayaBharat" or the "Company"), whose shares are being admitted to trading on AIMtoday. Naya Bharat has issued 60,000,000 shares at USD1 per share through aplacing to institutional investors, raising USD60 million. Charlemagne has over three years experience in investing in Indian assets viaits Global Emerging Markets funds and in December 2005 launched the Magna IndiaFund. In addition, Charlemagne's private equity and property team has been partyto numerous investments in the property sector. •Naya Bharat is a newly incorporated Isle of Man company established to invest primarily in both listed and unlisted companies whose principal activity is the ownership and/or development of land in India. •The Company's objective is to provide shareholders with an attractive overall return to be achieved primarily through long-term capital growth. •The Company will seek to take advantage of perceived capital market pricing anomalies by investing in established listed property investors/ developers at substantial discounts to their net asset values. + Charlemagne believes that listed property companies offer attractive valuations relative to other listed Indian companies, but not on a price /earnings basis. + A key element of the valuation is the unrealised value of land and partially completed construction. + Charlemagne believes that it has the local knowledge of both companies and markets required to find listed property companies at attractive valuations. •In addition to investment in listed property investors/developers, special situations in unlisted, pre-IPO and property-rich smaller capitalisation stocks will be sought. •The Company will aim to establish a portfolio of investments with low liquidity in the underlying stocks and does not anticipate significant turnover until relative and absolute pricing anomalies have been realised. KC Reddy, Portfolio Adviser to Naya Bharat said: "There are attractiveinvestment opportunities in India, with property companies trading atsubstantial discounts to their current NAVs." Jayne Sutcliffe, Chief Executive of Charlemagne Capital, said: "Naya Bharat isthe ideal vehicle for investors wanting exposure to the fast growing Indianproperty market, and Charlemagne Capital has the required local expertise tosuccessfully manage the portfolio." Enquiries: Charlemagne Capital Tel. 020 7518 2100Jayne Sutcliffe, Chief ExecutiveDavid Curl, Finance Director & Head of Investment Smithfield Consultants Tel. 020 7360 4900John KielyGeorge Hudson Notes to Editors: Charlemagne is a specialist emerging markets equity investment management group.Charlemagne Capital Limited was admitted to the AIM market of the London StockExchange on 4 April 2006. Charlemagne's product range comprises mutual funds, hedge funds andinstitutional and specialist fund products primarily covering GEMs, EasternEurope, Latin America and Asia. Charlemagne Capital employs a range ofinvestment strategies including: long only, long/short, structured products andprivate equity. Charlemagne Capital's funds aim to exploit the inefficiencies inthe market via a strict bottom up approach and focused stock selection. Through the strong long-term investment performance track record of itsprincipal funds, Charlemagne has established itself as a market leader inemerging markets investment management. Its performance has been recognisedthrough numerous awards and top rankings for its funds, including the 2005Standard and Poor's 5-year best performing fund award in Austria, the 2006 SwissLipper Leaders 5-year award winner for Emerging Markets Europe and an AAA-ratingby Standard & Poor's for its Magna Eastern European Fund (a sub-fund of MagnaUmbrella Fund Plc). This announcement is not for publication or distribution to persons in theUnited States of America, its territories or possessions or to any US person(within the meaning of Regulation S of the US Securities Act of 1933, asamended). Neither this announcement nor any copy of it may be taken ortransmitted into Australia, Canada or Japan or to Canadian persons or to anysecurities analyst or other person in any of those jurisdictions. Any failure tocomply with this restriction may constitute a violation of United States,Australian, Canadian or Japanese securities law. The distribution of thisannouncement in other jurisdictions may be restricted by law and persons intowhose possession this announcement comes should inform themselves about andobserve any such restrictions. This announcement contains certain forward-looking statements with respect tothe financial condition, results of operations and businesses of the Group.These statements and forecasts involve risk and uncertainty because they relateto events and depend upon circumstances that will occur in the future. There area number of factors that could cause actual results or developments to differmaterially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statementsand forecasts. Nothing in this announcement should be construed as a profitforecast. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
CCAP.L