‘Severe illiquidity’ hurts AIM VCT
Article Date: Sep 30 2008Pennine AIM VCT has announced a year-on-year decline of more than one-third in its net asset value per share, from 70.7p to 44.1p, as Chairman Hugh Gillespie says the fund’s management is constrained by the ‘severe illiquidity of most AIM stocks, along with the restrictions imposed by the VCT regulations’.
The VCT’s half-year results to July show that the total return per ordinary share, including dividends, is minus 5.4 per cent over the past six months, and minus 15.1 per cent over the past year.
Some of the fund’s investments have gained in value over the past six months, including property maintenance group Connaught, infrastructure support services group Spice, and Synergy Health, which delivers outsourced services to healthcare providers. These three companies, all listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange, are the largest holdings in the VCT’s ordinary share pool, making up a combined 26 per cent.
Other holdings have done less well, including aerospace services company Aero Inventory, which lost 18 per cent of its value during the period, and IT services business FDM Group, which fell 31 per cent.
Gillespie concludes that ‘with so much uncertainty for the general economic outlook for the next year or so, there is risk that further value could be lost’.
