Hybridan Small Cap Feast - 12/04/2024

12th April 2024 * A corporate client of Hybridan LLP ** Arranged by type of listing and date of announcement *** Alphabetically arranged **** Potential means Intention to Float (ITF) has been announced Dish of the day Admissions: Delistings: What’s baking in the oven? ** Potential**** Initial Public Offerings: Reverse Takeovers: Change of Market: TheWorks (WRKS.L) a multi-channel value retailers of books, arts and crafts, stationery, toys and games, offering customers a differentiated propositio

Hybridan Small Cap Feast 14/11/2023

Dish of the day Joiners: No joiners today. Leavers: Ergomed has left AIM. What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen?** 9 November: Chapel Down Group ITF: England's leading and largest wine producer with an award-winning range of sparkling and still wines, under the Chapel Down brand. The Company owns, leases and sources from 1,023 acres of vineyards in South East England announces its Admission to AIM after its transfer from the Aquis Apex market. The Company will not be raising new capital or providing

Discusssions underway to unlock value

The investment case pivots on the progress of strategic options under consideration for the two operating businesses. Specifically, these relate to the outcome of discussions with potential buyers for each entity, a process which has been simplified by their legal separation. We see potential scope to realise a net return above R&Q’s current market value. Initial discussions focus on Accredited, R&Q’s program management business for which it confirms receipt of interest from a number of parties

R&Q Insurance Holdings - FY22 Results

R&Q reported an adjusted group pre-tax operating loss for the year to end December 2022 of US$33.3m (2021 (US$21.4m)). The results were in line with guidance from the April trading statement but represented a significant deterioration YoY as strong results from the Accredited program management business were more than offset by losses in the R&Q Legacy insurance business and higher corporate costs. On an IFRS reported basis, R&Q made a loss of US$297.0m (2021 (US$127.1m)) generating a loss per s

Hybridan Small Cap Feast - 29 Jun 23

29th June 2023 @HybridanLLP Status of this Note and Disclaimer This document has been issued to you by Hybridan LLP for information purposes only and should not be construed in any circumstances as an offer to sell or solicitation of any offer to buy any security or other financial instrument, nor shall it, or the fact of its distribution, form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any contract relating to such action. This document has no regard for the specific investment objecti

Completing separation of group businesses

R&Q’s US$60m equity issue is key to its plan to separate its legacy and program management operations. It enables its PM business (Accredited) to access an AM Best rating on a standalone basis, without any of the issues related to reliance upon the group balance sheet. The new funds assist that clean break by (a) increasing the capitalisation of R&Q Legacy, which is providing reinsurance support for completed legacy transactions originated by Accredited and (b) generating cash for general corpo

R&Q Insurance Holdings | Financing Update

R&Q has raised US$50m in preferred equity with potential to increase to US$60m. The financing is being provided by Scopia Capital Management which has a last disclosed holding of 8.0% in R&Q. The proceeds are to be used to increase capitalisation for the R&Q Legacy business and for general corporate purposes. R&Q has now received all approvals necessary to complete the separation of the Accredited program management and R&Q Legacy businesses in connection with which Accredited is no longer payin

Hybridan Small Cap Feast - 12 Jun 23

12th June 2023 @HybridanLLP Status of this Note and Disclaimer This document has been issued to you by Hybridan LLP for information purposes only and should not be construed in any circumstances as an offer to sell or solicitation of any offer to buy any security or other financial instrument, nor shall it, or the fact of its distribution, form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any contract relating to such action. This document has no regard for the specific investment objecti

Major acceleration of strategic refocus

Momentum behind the group’s strategic refocus is gathering pace. This year R&Q has sold its minority (40%) stake in Tradesman and set up a new JV with OBRA Capital to acquire non-insurance legacy liabilities. That builds on the creation in 2021 of Gibson Re to transform its legacy operations onto a less capital intensive, fee-based model. The latest proposal is the most material transformation from a group perspective. It would create two separate standalone entities from its core operations, p

Strategic & Trading Update

R&Q announced an important strategic update which should see the separation of the Program Management and Legacy Insurance businesses. That reflects the rapid growth in the Program Management business which is now able to self-sustain the credit rating it needs to support new business. Implementation would result in completion of the strategic drive to transform R&Q into a recuring fee-based speciality insurer with more predictable, lower volatility earnings and less risk. Separately, R&Q advis

Hybridan Small Cap Feast - 17 Mar 23

17 March 2023 @HybridanLLP Status of this Note and Disclaimer This document has been issued to you by Hybridan LLP for information purposes only and should not be construed in any circumstances as an offer to sell or solicitation of any offer to buy any security or other financial instrument, nor shall it, or the fact of its distribution, form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any contract relating to such action. This document has no regard for the specific investment objectiv

FY22 Program Management update & Tradesman disposal

R&Q has confirmed the rapid growth in Gross Written Premium and associated Program Fee Income which is core to the company's transformation into a recurring fee-based specialty insurer with more predictable, lower volatility earnings and less risk. It has also sold its entire 40% holding in Tradesman, by far the company's largest holding in a Managing General Agent, for a consideration of $47m in a compelling offer. The announcement generated a strong positive response in the market with the sha

Hybridan Small Cap Feast - 23 Feb 23

23 February 2023 @HybridanLLP Status of this Note and Disclaimer This document has been issued to you by Hybridan LLP for information purposes only and should not be construed in any circumstances as an offer to sell or solicitation of any offer to buy any security or other financial instrument, nor shall it, or the fact of its distribution, form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any contract relating to such action. This document has no regard for the specific investment objec

Hot Off The Wires - The Day Ahead

Today's news and views, plus announcements from: AAL, BAE, RR., WPP, GNS, UKW, HIK, HWDN, MGNS, AVCT, RQIH, & TRR.

A flying start to ’23 with new JV and Portfolio wins

R&Q recently announced the first acquisition by its new joint venture with OBRA Capital. OBRA, which recently changed its name from Vida Capital, holds a 9% stake in R&Q. With this transaction, R&Q taps into a potentially new distribution channel represented by an emerging trend identified by insurance industry research. This trend sees large industrial (non-insurance) groups increasingly seek ways to achieve finality in respect of their long-tail liabilities that relate to worker compensation

LIBERUM: Plus500: Strategic progress pays dividends

Tatton Asset Management (TAM LN) - Record net inflows

Tatton, the leading on-platform discretionary fund manager (DFM) and IFA support services Group has released a trading update ahead of its results to 31 March 2024, due on 18 June 2024.

Hardman & Co Insight: 2023 was an annus horribilis for Quoted UK Infrastructure and Renewable Energy

The focus of Hardman & Co Research is on the nine quoted Infrastructure Investment Companies (IICs) and on the 22 Renewable Energy Infrastructure Funds (REIFs): the stocks analysed are all members of the Association of Investment Companies (AIC). We are updating our publication of January 2023, assessing both the lacklustre share price performances during 2023 and the key issues, including interest rates, inflation and power prices. As a 31-strong group, its combined market capitalisation is no

Ondo InsurTech FY24 Trading Update

Ondo InsurTech has released a brief post-YE update revealing its good progress continued through 2H24 and consequently FY24 will be in line with market expectations.

BlackRock World Mining

BRWM’s managers: we see all the classic signs of high commodity prices...

NextEnergy Solar Fund - Attractive Refinancing

The refinancing of a £135m revolving credit facility and the extension of a similar £70m facility gives NESF firepower as development opportunities for new solar are especially attractive thanks to lower module prices in Europe. They give the fund key financial flexibility at a critical time as it pursues its capital recycling programme.

The Hardman & Co Monthly: April 2024

Feature article: Steady as she goes, but could be better: A review of investment company liquidity since 2016 Liquidity is the lifeblood of equity markets. The measurement of liquid asset availability to a market or company is a way of gauging a market’s health. This article builds on our previous work, which analysed the liquidity data for non-financial trading companies, by applying the same analytical techniques to the investment companies (IC) space. We analyse liquidity for ICs as a whol

Initial Equity Trading Comments - 19 February 2024

M Winkworth+ (WINK, House Stock at 163p) - Solid FY23A results, well placed to grow

Resilient FY24, confident long-term outlook

Vp’s full year update highlights sector-leading results, once again benefiting from the diversity of its end markets and the quality of its specialist businesses. With results expected to be broadly in line with expectations, we trim our FY24 PBT forecast by c.5% to £39.0m, a shade below the FY23 outturn (£40.2m). We consider this an impressively resilient performance set against a mixed market backdrop. Under new leadership, a strategic refresh is underway and management is confident in long

Hybridan Small Cap Feast - 16/04/2024

16th April 2024 * A corporate client of Hybridan LLP ** Arranged by type of listing and date of announcement *** Alphabetically arranged **** Potential means Intention to Float (ITF) has been announced Dish of the day Admissions: Delistings: What’s baking in the oven? ** Potential**** Initial Public Offerings: Reverse Takeovers: Electric Guitar (ELEG.L) Concurrent with its Admission to trading on AIM, Electric Guitar is proposing to acquire the entire issued share capital of 3radical Limited for

NextEnergy Solar Fund – High- and growing-income opportunity?

NextEnergy Solar Fund (NESF) is almost 10 years old. Since launch, it has built a £1.2bn, 933MW portfolio of 100 operating solar assets, powering the equivalent of over 330,000 homes, declared dividends totalling £333m, and avoided the emission of about 2.2 Mt CO2e. NESF is on track to pay 8.35p in dividends, with forecast dividend cover of about 1.3x. Share price weakness that has afflicted the whole sector means that dividend translates to a yield of 11.1%, one of the highest in its sector, a

Jupiter Green

JGC’s fundamental story continues to show resilience, but the discount remains wide…

Lowland Investment Company - Is the tide turning?

Lowland Investment Company’s (LWI’s) unconstrained, multi-cap investment policy differentiates it from most peers in the AIC UK Equity Income sector. It offers investors broad market exposure, outside of the large, traditional ‘income stocks’ at a 13% discount to NAV. The underperformance of small- and mid-cap companies versus larger peers has slowed and a turnaround would be very positive for LWI. Portfolio returns are already benefiting from acquisition activity, spurred by low valuations, and

AUM up 30% in FY24, record flows, forecasts raised

AUM jumped £3.8bn or +30% in FY24, reaching £16.6bn on 31 Mar 24, 12% above our previous forecast of £14.7bn. Including 50%-owned 8AM Global, Assets Under Influence hit £17.6bn. Investment performance provided a tailwind, adding £1.5bn to AUM. But our key takeaway from Tatton’s hugely impressive last few years, is that it has designed and implemented a superior offering in platform-MPS with net flows consistently far higher than peers. That leadership looks even more pronounced in H2-24 with net