Good morning,
This month has been particularly busy seeing current and potential shareholders. The team has been in Leeds, Birmingham and London with a planned visit to Edinburgh in March. We also held a series of meetings in Ireland as we seek to expand our international reach.
It is always enjoyable talking to investors about ICG Enterprise Trust, and we have found this last month particularly so: from those who are just beginning to do work on us, to those who have known us for some time, the level of engagement and questioning has been very high. Thank you to those who took the time.
We have come away from these conversations feeling positive. There seems to be an increasing level of understanding in the market when it comes to private equity; several market participants had a cautious sense of hope that potential changes to regulatory fee disclosure might help drive new demand for listed private equity vehicles generally; and our investment thesis and track record appear to have a place in people’s portfolios. We look forward to continuing those discussions and to having more in the future.
Our buyback programme continued to operate during the month, and we have now been in the market on 100 separate days since October 2022 – a notable landmark. February included our largest single purchase, with one day representing 25 times our average daily buyback pace to date. While our general approach is little and often, providing liquidity and reducing the share price volatility, we are nimble in our implementation, and there were specific circumstances here which merited a bigger intervention. We think consistent, flexible and active execution is crucial to generating long-term, sustainable benefits for shareholders from our buyback programme.
So lots on the marketing and shareholder experience this month. Of course, our investment activities also continued – we noted in our Q3 shareholder presentation that “market commentary suggests 2024 may see a pick-up in levels of private equity transaction activity”. Still relatively early days, but we are certainly not seeing anything to contradict that view.
Increasing shareholder interest combined with a more constructive level of activity in the broader market are setting us up for a potentially interesting few months ahead. We look forward to sharing them with you.
Oliver & Colm
Subscribe to our newsletters
Sign up for Regulatory News updates: click here
Authors
Back