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(Alliance News) - Life sciences debt investment trust BioPharma Credit PLC on Tuesday reported a rise in net asset value in 2019.
Net assets at December 31 were USD1.40 billion, up 1.7% from USD1.38 billion a year before. Per share, net assets rose at the same rate to USD1.0217 from USD1.0044.
The stock was trading 2.3% higher at USD0.99 each in London on Tuesday morning.
"We have delivered another year of considerable investment activity that has transformed our investment portfolio as we deployed the cash resources into compelling opportunities and roughly doubled the number of our portfolio holdings. The significant cash resources available to the company at the outset of 2019 provided a unique opportunity to increase the scale of the portfolio. We are delighted that this process has been completed on schedule with the cash resources fully invested or otherwise allocated towards a leading portfolio of life sciences credit investments," said Pedro Gonzalez de Cosio, chief executive of BioPharma Credit's investment manager.
"We continue to see a number of significant opportunities in our pipeline and will update the market in due course as these progress through our rigorous due diligence process. We believe the Company is ideally poised from its 2019 investment activity to deliver further growth and add additional diversification to our income base."
Dividends totalling 7.18 cents per share were paid in 2019, in line with the company's 7p per share target payout.
By Eric Cunha; ericcunha@alliancenews.com
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