Schroders has made its first investment for the UK Public Private Trust since it took over management from Neil Woodford in December 2019.
The Schroder UK Public Private Trust (SUPP) announced on Tuesday it had initiated a $6.75m (£4.78m) holding in cybersecurity company Tessian.
SUPP, managed by Tim Creed (pictured) and Ben Wicks, invested in Tessian as part of its $65m Series C funding round “to accelerate its mission of quantifying and preventing human risk in enterprises across the globe”.
Holding addresses ‘people problem’ in cybersecurity
Tessian is developing an approach to cybersecurity and is defining a new category of security software called Human Layer Security. This seeks to overcome the “people-problem” in security, which sees approximately 90% of data breaches caused by human error, using machine learning and behavioural intelligence models.
The filing said the maiden investment is in line with the trust’s focus on “backing innovative businesses founded in the UK with disruptive innovations, significant global growth potential, high quality management teams and supported by credible co-investors”.
Creed and Wicks said the investment marks a “major milestone for the company that reflects the progress that has been made”. They added Tessian is a “great fit” for the portfolio and that they “couldn’t be more excited by the opportunity that lies ahead of this high-growth innovative business”.
Slowly recovering
The trust, formerly run by Neil Woodford saw the value of its NAV slashed from £398m or 43.48p per share at the end of September to £318m or 35.01p a share by the end of Q4 2020.
SUPP inherited portfolio of illiquid investments from Woodford and at the beginning of the year sold off a handful of biotech stocks, including Carrick Therapeutics, Mission Therapeutics, Psioxus Therapeutics and Mereo BioPharma, to Rosetta Capital at a 20% discount.
Its discount has narrowed substantially from -29.30% in December to -5.7%, with performance picking up from a share price total return loss of -65.8% over five years to returns of 26.9% on a one-year basis, according to data from the Association of Investment Companies. It still underperforms the AIC Growth Capital sector average return of 49.6%.
Its share price fell 0.3% on Tuesday to 32.9p a share.
