28 Jul 2021 12:00
Strategy/Company/Operations UpdateThe Board of Oxford Technology VCT Plc is pleased to provide an update ahead of discussions at the forthcoming shareholders events. The first takes place at 2pm today in Oxford and the second one, a webinar, will be at 10.30am on Thursday 12 August (details below). No additional price sensitive information will be shared during these forums.
The chairman’s statement in OT1’s annual report for the 12 months ending 28 February 2021 states:
“We continue to believe your VCT is an appropriate structure to hold your Company’s investments, but as we have often stated, it would be preferable to have a larger asset base to share the operating costs. Shareholders will be aware that for a number of years, we have sought to find a partner interested in using the existing VCT structure to launch its own share offering, and hence enabling us to expand our asset base, and further efforts have continued in the last few months in this regard. We have had detailed conversations with many other prospective parties who are potentially interested in entering the VCT industry, and some of these conversations are progressing.
At the half year, we further indicated that the Boards of the four Oxford Technology VCTs were reviewing once again the merits of merging some, or all, of the companies, given the relentless upward trajectory of regulatory costs and the ongoing challenges of maintaining VCT status, due to the very small size of each of the companies. There are very significant costs to effect such a merger: a drawback of operating each company on a limited budget and where possible consolidating activities, is that it makes the payback period of any such merger a number of years, and the
Directors continue to assess whether the payback period of such a transaction is viable. Such a transaction is not without risk and it is by no means clear that it would be in your Company’s best interests to participate in such a transaction.
We will update shareholders if and when these discussions reach a conclusion, and in any event, shareholder approval would then be required before any transaction could proceed. We have always made clear that there is no certainty that either strategic route (a merger or increasing the asset base with a new manager) can be successful but the Directors will continue seeking such opportunities where possible”.
One of the other VCTs in the Oxford ‘stable’, namely Oxford Technology 2 VCT Plc (“OT2”), has today announced that it is in discussions with two parties (whose identities are currently confidential), either of whom would be a good partner to work with. Your Board are giving consideration to the merits of merging with OT2 at the same time (using a scheme of arrangement that will preserve existing shareholders tax benefits). Any such merged funds would become a separate share class of OT2 to ensure shareholders suffer no dilution of their individual portfolio holdings.
As stated previously, there is no certainty that any of the above options will conclude. However, we are keen to explore these concepts with shareholders so that we can ensure any route selected by your Board is likely to be met with shareholder approval were it to be sought. In any event we will be seeking shareholder approval at the AGM for the continuation of the VCT.
Both shareholder informal forums will include a presentation from OTM followed by a shareholder Q&A to include future strategy. There will be selected investee video presentations. Details of how to register for the webinar are on the website: www.oxfordtechnologyvct.com.
No dates have been determined yet for any general meetings that may be required to effect any of the above potential proposals.
For more information, please contact Alex Starling, Chairman, by emailing vcts@oxfordtechnology.com
This announcement contains inside information as stipulated under the UK version of the Market Abuse Regulation No 596/2014 which is part of English Law by virtue of the European (Withdrawal) Act 2018, as amended. Upon the publication of this announcement via a Regulatory Information Service, this information is now considered to be in the public domain