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(Alliance News) - NB Distressed Debt Investment Fund Ltd on Thursday reported an half-year fall in net assets and said market uncertainty means its wind-down is taking longer than initially planned.
The Guernsey-incorporated closed-ended fund invests in distressed, stressed and special situations investments, with a focus on senior debt backed by hard assets and on North America and Europe.
NB Distressed Debt has three share classes: ordinary, or NBDD; extended life, NBDX; and new global, NBDG. The ordinary and extended life share classes focus on distressed debt in North America, whilst the new global class's remit covers Europe as well as North America.
At June 30, the ordinary shares had a net asset value of USD0.655, down 28% from USD0.9086 at December 31.
The extended life shares suffered a 24% interim NAV per share fall to USD0.7087. In the global class, NAV per share was 27% lower at 0.6125 pence.
NB Distressed's total net asset value slumped 49% over the six-month period to USD101.5 million from USD199.1 million at December 31.
NB Distressed previously anticipated realising all assets in its ordinary share class by the end of 2019, but noted that this did not happen due to market uncertainty.
"The six-month period was one of near unprecedented economic and social disruption but, notwithstanding, the company delivered further capital distributions to the shareholders of the NBDX and NBDG share classes consistent with the now well-established and orderly realisation of the portfolios," the investment firm said.
NB continued: "With each share class in its harvest period, we continue to seek to balance the pace of exits and the value achieved for shareholders as we return capital to our investors. As a reminder the ordinary class shareholders will no longer receive capital distributions until such time as all final assets attributable to them have been realised to ensure compliance with UK regulations."
As of June 30, the company has returned a total of USD132.8 million or 106.7% of NBDD investors' original capital; USD251.7 million or 70.06% of NBDX investors' original capital; and GBP27.1 million or 24.52% of NBDG investors' original capital.
"The board continually reviews the most appropriate means to return capital to shareholders to maximise the benefit to shareholders and we look forward to reporting further realisations in the coming quarters and the subsequent distribution of those proceeds on the receipt of the funds," NB added.
The fund said it continues to expect its final distribution from its ordinary shares to be in 2020.
"The wind up of the other two classes will take a little longer but we hope to complete the realisation process in the next couple of years. As noted earlier, upheaval in financial markets and global trade uncertainty may impact these timings and we will keep shareholders updated via the quarterly fact sheets," NB said.
The ordinary shares were untraded at USD0.645 each in London on Wednesday. The extended life share were 5.4% lower at USD0.44, while the global class were untraded at 49.00p.
By Paul McGowan; paulmcgowan@alliancenews.com
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