VCT News
ProVen VCT launches £15m 'C' Share Offer
15 November 2006 - London - Beringea Ltd, the manager of the ProVen and ProVen Growth & Income VCTs, announced today that it has re-opened ProVen VCT for investment with the launch of a £15 million 'C' share offer.
Launched in February 2000, ProVen VCT is one of the best ever performing funds. It is the top rated VCT in its launch year1 and is ranked 5th out of 61 VCTs with a track year of 3 years or more2. As at 31 August 2006, ProVen VCT's net asset value per share ("NAV") stood at 133.9p and the total return (NAV plus cumulative dividends) stood at 156.1p, an increase of 26.1p (23.5%) since the last financial year-end of 28 February 2006.
ProVen VCT also announced recently that it will be paying a special dividend of 31p to existing Ordinary shareholders on the 7th December, following the sale in September of Mergermarket Ltd to the FT Group. This realisation generated a return of 14 times ProVen VCT's initial investment.
The funds raised in the 'C' share issue will be invested using a similar investment strategy to that employed by ProVen VCT in the past - investing in a diversified portfolio of mainly unquoted companies with the potential for significant value appreciation. They will also be co-invested alongside funds raised by the ProVen Growth & Income VCT 'C' share issue, enabling both VCTs to access larger transactions.
Beringea Managing Director Stuart Veale commented: "We are currently seeing a strong flow of deals, many of which require up to £2 million of equity capital. Raising a further £15 million for ProVen VCT will ensure that we are able to take full advantage of these attractive investment opportunities and build a strong portfolio of companies that will generate long term returns for our investors."
A key feature of the new issue is the intention to return up to 25p (per £1 invested) of the shareholders' original investment after five years, through a combination of dividends and a Partial Offer. Under the Partial Offer, the VCT will offer to buy back shares at Net Asset Value, giving investors the opportunity to realise part of their investment without having to sell shares at a discount on the secondary market. ProVen VCT also intends to operate a buy back policy, under which it will purchase shares at a 10% discount to Net Asset Value (provided that the VCT has sufficient liquidity).
"The weak secondary market for VCT shares means that they are often hard to sell. By introducing a Partial Offer we have tried to address this issue so that investors can sell a portion of their shares at no discount to the NAV after five years, thus helping to increase liquidity and enhance their returns from the VCT" comments Jeff Cornish, Director at Beringea.
Download the Share Securities Note by clicking here, or contact Jeff Cornish on 020 7845 7820.
1 Source: www.taxefficientreview.com
2 Source: www.taxshelterreport.com
About Beringea
Beringea is an international venture capital firm with offices in London and Detroit. In the UK Beringea manages ProVen VCT, ProVen Health VCT, ProVen Growth & Income VCT and Global Rights Fund II. Beringea launched its first VCT in 1996, making it one of the most experienced VCT managers in the UK. ProVen Growth & Income and ProVen VCT are highest performing VCTs of their launch years, respectively, according to www.taxefficientreview.com. For more information please visit www.provenvcts.co.uk.