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LONDON (Alliance News) - Worldsec Ltd on Monday reported a rise in net assets and believes a share placing conducted at the beginning of 2018 will allow it to expand its portfolio.
At December 31, the closed-ended investment company focused on China and the south east Pacific regions saw its NAV per share stand at 6.3 US cents compared to 4.5 cents the year before, a 40% jump.
The company's net assets more than doubled in 2018 to USD5.4 million from USD2.5 million the year before. Worldsec issued 28.4 million shares in April.
Worldsec said investee Velocity Mobile Ltd continued to achieve "strong growth" in revenue on the back of increased customer spend and engagement as well as significant productivity gain driven by automation. The company launched of Velocity for Business, which is expected to enable the Velocity group to "meaningfully scale customer numbers thereby further monetising the Velocity platform".
Worldsec noted investee firm Ayondo Ltd, during the latter part of the year, focussed on pursuing its B2B strategy in Asia. After year end, Ayondo shares were suspended from trading on the Singapore Exchange.
In February 2019, Ayondo explained its brokerage subsidiary, which is regulated in the UK, was seeking clarification from the UK Financial Conduct Authority on "certain accounting treatments" in relation to a prescribed ratio for the purpose of compliance.
In China, Worldsec said investee Oasis Education Consulting Co Ltd continued to provide consulting and support services to the Huizhou Kindergarten, which graduated 52 pupils in the summer of 2018. For the academic term commencing in February 2019, 35 new pupils have enrolled with the Huizhou Kindergarten, raising its total pupil enrolment to more than 250.
Non-Executive Chair Alastair Gunn-Forbes added: "With the strengthening of the group's financial resources following the successful completion of the open offer, I am confident that the group would be capable of further expanding and diversifying its investment portfolio while meeting the investment objective of the company."
In 2018, Worldsec widened its pretax loss to USD803,000 from USD424,000 in 2017. Worldsec said the widened loss was due to a negative change in the fair value of financial assets.
The company's revenue increased 42% to USD136,000 from USD96,000.
Worldsec did not declare a dividend in 2018, same as the year before.
Shares in Worldsec were untraded Monday at 3.00 pence each.