Saba Capital has doubled its stake to 10% in Pantheon International (PIN), the £1.6bn private equity fund on a 31% discount where activists AVI and Metage also hold positions.

Sirius Real Estate (SRE) has bolstered its defence exposure with the €93.4m acquisition of a business park in Kiel, Germany, predominantly let to Rheinmetall, the country’s largest arms manufacturer.

HgCapital Trust (HGT), the £1.7bn private equity fund that has plunged to a 31% share price discount on fears of its large exposure to software companies, has sold a position in Geomatikk, a Norwegian provider of software for mangers of critical underground infrastructure. The £20.4m exit was priced at a 3% uplift to carrying value at 28 February, and 1% above December’s valuation.

Aurora UK Alpha (ARR) trailed the FTSE All-Share’s 23.9% rebound last year with an underlying 16.8% growth in net asset value (NAV) that underpinned a total shareholder return of 19.8%. The annual dividend was hiked to 4.7p from 3p per share to pay out revenues of 4.59p up from 3.2p. Phoenix fund manager Gary Channon’s best stocks in the year were Lloyds bank, Ryanair, Frasers Group and Burberry although house builder Barratt Redrow fell with Channon adding to the position. The value investor sold RHI Magnesita after reassessing the steel industry supplier and exited builder Bellway after a change in management. Ongoing charges fell to 0.35% from 0.45% after the merger with Artemis Alpha. Longer-term performance has been poor with a 15% total return over five years compared to 70% from the All-Share. It passed a continuation vote last year.

QuotedData’s James Carthew commented: “Aurora UK Alpha’s results are disappointing but the returns of a concentrated portfolio are always likely to deviate significantly from any index benchmark and I respect the honesty from the manager about the reasons for the trust’s long-term underperformance (explored in great detail in its September factsheet). Since the period end and the outbreak of war, the NAV has fallen further impacted by the fuel price knock to Ryanair and worries about UK interest rates hitting house Barratt Redrow. The manager asks investors to remember that ‘geopolitical shocks of this kind, however alarming in the moment, rarely alter the long-term economics of well-run businesses in a fundamental way’.”

GCP Asset Backed Income (GABI) made “strong progress” in the second year of the debt fund’s wind-down last year. It redeemed 43.7m shares taking the total bought back since June 2024 to 253.7m shares which has returned £221.6m to shareholders and resulted in a 61.1% reduction in the share capital. Net asset value of the 19 loan portfolio fell 8.6% to £115.8m with 74.69p NAV per share at 31 December. Including 6.3p of dividends, the total underlying loss was reduced to 1.2%.  

Baillie Gifford Shin Nippon (BGS) salvaged a 14.4% total shareholder return in the year to 31 January as the appointment of fund manager Brian Lum and promise of a continuation vote in 2028 narrowed the share price discount and delivered more than the underlying 5.4% return that badly lagged its benchmark’s 21.5% total return. The derating of small-cap growth stocks has seen the shares fall nearly 44% over five years compared to the 42.4% advance in the index.

BlackRock Smaller Companies (BRSC) shareholders have approved the merger with BlackRock Throgmorton (THRG) with 99.7% of votes at yesterday’s general meeting accounting for 38.3% of total share capital. A 28% tender offer was over-subscribed with applications to sell 47.5% of the shares received. These will be scaled back so that 28% are sold. The tender remains subject to Throgmorton shareholders approving its wind-up on 16 April.

JPMorgan UK Small Cap Growth & Income (JUGI) underperformed in the half year to 31 January with a 5.3% underlying investment return lagging the 8.9% rise in the Deutsche Numis Smaller Companies index. Shareholders did a bit better with a 6.8% total return as the share price discount to net asset value narrowed form 9.5% to 8.4%. Top stocks for fund managers Georgina Brittain and Katen Patel included Lion Finance, Plus500, Keller, Applied Nutrition, Serco and Hothschild alongside bids for JTC and Just Group. However, the lack of Greatland Resources and Pan African Resources hurt relative performance as did declines in Warpaint London and Baltic Classified, which were both sold.

3i Infrastructure (3IN) is on track to achieve its 8%-10% target return in the current financial year. In a half-year trading update for October to March it says the 50% premium achieved on the £1bn sale of its stake in airport ground support equipment provider TCR more than offsets the write-down of DNS Net in Germany and challenges at SRL, the UK temporary traffic management equipment rental company. On a positive day for the UK stock market, shares in the £3bn 4%-yielder rose 1.5% to 331p from a 20% discount at yesterday’s close.

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