(Alliance News) - New Century AIM VCT on Wednesday said its net asset value rose in the first half of its financial year, having made nine new investments and top sliced or exited two others.
The company's NAV per share stood at 71 pence on August 31, the end of its first financial half year. This represents a 2.9% improvement over its 69p per share NAV on February 28. However, it is 18% below the year-before figure of 87p.
The AIM-listed companies investor made nine investments in the six months ended August 31. These were in Concepta PLC, Diaceutics PLC, Feedback PLC, Gfinity PLC, Immotion Group PLC, Integumen PLC, Intelligent Ultrasound Group PLC, LightwaveRF PLC and Velocys PLC.
New Century Chair Geoff Gamble said: "We are excited about these investments from a variety of growth sectors that include medtech, apps, esports, virtual reality, healthcare, energy efficiency and sustainable fuels."
The company also top sliced or exited two of its investments, as well as receiving a takeover offer at a "decent premium" on its Premier Technology Services Group PLC stake.
Gamble said: "The AIM Market has experienced further volatility recently where we had the AIM market starting the year well but then experiencing large declines followed by smaller rallies. As your fund is invested primarily in AIM companies, we are exposed to this, however the fund is invested in a wide variety of businesses from different industry sectors.
"There has been a tightening of liquidity in some of the smaller companies as investors deal with the continual news of the USA and China trade wars, the ongoing developments on Brexit and some redemptions from other fund managers. We have also experienced some cautious statements from some companies we have invested in which has had a negative effect on their share prices but we also have many that continue to trade well which gives us cautious optimism in our ability to smooth out the peaks and troughs in the short term."
Shares in New Century AIM VCT were untraded at 70.50p in London on Wednesday afternoon.
By Anna Farley; annafarley@alliancenews.com
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