LONDON (Alliance News) - IP Group PLC on Wednesday said it saw a swing to loss in the first half of 2018 despite an improvement in its portfolio valuation.
The intellectual property-based business developer said pretax loss for six months to the end of June was GBP21.6 million, swinging from a pretax profit of GBP16.7 million for the same period the year previously.
This was due to a change in the fair value of its equity and debt investments to GBP700,000, from a fair value gain of GBP28.5 million the year before.
Licensing income more than halved to GBP800,000 million from GBP3.0 million the year before, while the fair value of its portfolio nearly doubled to GBP1.16 billion from GBP663.0 million year-on-year.
The single largest portfolio company fair value increase during the period was Diurnal Group PLC in the Life Sciences sector.
The London-listed pharmaceutical company hit a major milestone this year, moving it from a development company onto marketing and sales, after Infacort medicine was approved for marketing by the European Commission. An increase in the share price of Diurnal resulted in a fair value increase of GBP10.2 million to IP Group.
During the first half of 2018, IP Group said it deployed GBP46.9 million of capital into 41 portfolio companies and projects.
"The underlying performance of the group's portfolio has been robust in the first half with a number of our companies completing both major fundraisings and collaborations," said Chief Executive Alan Aubrey.
"The group remains excited by the opportunities within the portfolio and we look to the second half of the year and beyond with confidence," added Aubrey.
Shares in IP Group were trading 2.6% lower on Wednesday at 126.96 pence each.