Prelude Trust relaunches £5m share buyback; £5.6m of new investments in pipeline

Cambridge-based Prelude Trust plc (PDT.L), the investment trust that specialises in early stage, technology-based businesses, has relaunched its offer to buy up to 3.7m shares from shareholders to return £5m capital to them.

The Trust, managed by Prelude Ventures, last week withdrew a similar offer announced in late March after it belatedly found that it would contravene s264 of the Companies Act 1985.

Chairman Michael Brooke said the Board originally decided to make a tender offer after meetings with shareholders indicated a "significant number" wanted some capital to be returned. This situation has not changed and the Board will make a new tender offer to shareholders on the same terms through brokers Panmure Gordon.

Shareholders will be entitled to have up to 9.78% of their holdings purchased at 135p a share. The tender price represents a discount of 6.9% to the diluted Net Asset Value per share of 145p as at 31 March 2006. The company said the effect of buying shares at a discount to NAV is expected to cause a small increase in the NAV per share.

The share was trading at 119.5p by mid morning.

Cash position

Prelude said it is currently holding cash or cash equivalents totalling £21m. Up to the end of June next year, about £0.2m is committed and £9.2m is allocated to existing portfolio companies and an additional £5.6m is required for new investments that are in the later stages of negotiation and moving towards completion. Additional cash receipts of £1.1m are expected from escrow accounts relating to previous realisations, taking the projected cash position to £7.1m.

Leaving a margin for costs and contingencies, the company has decided it has enough cash to allow the buy-back of shares up to a value of £5m.

It said the directors considered buying shares in the market using powers obtained at the last year's AGM, when the buy-back for cancellation of up to 10% of the its shares was approved. But they decided it would be more equitable to give all shareholders the opportunity to tender shares for purchase on a pro-rata basis

It anticipates the tender will be completed by the end of July when payments will be made.

Prelude Trust was launched in 1997 with initial capital of £21m and in March 2000 raised a further £30m via a rights issue. Its current investment portfolio includes: Cambridge Positioning Systems Ltd; CeNeS Pharmaceuticals plc; De Novo Pharmaceuticals Ltd; Kiadis BV; Lime Microsystems; m-spatial Ltd; NanoMagnetics Ltd; Oxford Immunotec Ltd; Phyworks Ltd; Polatis Ltd; Sciona Ltd; SiConnect Ltd; Xanadu Wireless; and, ZBD Displays Ltd.

30th May 2006

(Esprit Capital Partners)


Previous articles
Celsis says business momentum continued in 3Q08
UK Govt awards £1.85m grant to Intercytex, TAP to automate making of hair loss treatment
Intercytex buoyed by Pfizer's deal with London Uni on stem cell research
Brady’s turnover up 40% in 1H ‘09
News snippets: Ranier raises £8m; Board turmoil at MMI
‘Running the gauntlet’ competition doubles investment pot to £2m
Prelude Trust relaunches £5m share buyback; £5.6m of new investments in pipeline
Brady grows 1H revenues, cuts losses, flags return to profits
Brady gains 10% as it signs up new customer, reports cash pile
Briefs: Meldex CEO leaves “with immediate effect”; Sphere Medical raises £5m
Subscribe

 

Managed Hosting by NTT Managed Hosting
SEO London by IdeaTaxi.com
Corporate profiles

 • AVEVA


Paul Taylor
Finance Director and Company Secretary


AVEVA Group plc is one of the world’s foremost and fastest-growing lifecycle engineering IT solutions and services providers to the oil and gas, paper and pulp, power, chemical, pharmaceutical and shipbuilding industries. The Group reported for the year ended March 2005 a growth in turnover of 51%

[AVEVA's profile]


Top20 Index




Currently: 159.05