LONDON (Alliance News) - Woodford Patient Capital Trust PLC on Friday reported an increase in its net asset value, as the largest companies in its portfolio achieved commercialisation phase.
The FTSE 250 investment trust's net asset value per share rose 6.9% to 97.61 pence on December 31 from 91.33p a year prior. Woodford's total net assets were up the same 6.9% to GBP807.2 million from GBP755.3 million.
"The progress made by some of Woodfords's larger unquoted holdings has resulted, in part, in the increase in net asset value during the period of 6.9%," Chair Susan Searle said.
She added: "As the top companies in our portfolio move through points of inflection in forthcoming years, we would expect this to be more strongly reflected in NAV."
Among the best performing companies in Woodford portfolio, Autolus was the star performer after completing a stock market listing on Nasdaq.
Other companies such as Proton Partners, the UK's first high-energy proton beam therapy provider, entered the commercialisation phase in 2018.
"The portfolio's success stories are gradually beginning to account for a larger proportion of assets, so this has meant that the contribution from the positive uplifts was significantly greater than the contribution from the negatives," said Neil Woodford, the portfolio manager.
"Several of the more mature companies in the portfolio are now at a stage where a stock market listing would appear appropriate," Woodford added, though he said he has encouraged these companies to stay private as long as possible.
The stock was up 2.1% early Friday at 82.70 pence.
