The Schroder UK Public Private Trust (SUPP) has sold 10% of its holding in Oxford Nanopore after the biotech firm made its debut on the London Stock Exchange.
In an update to the market, the trust’s board said it offloaded the stake to diversify the portfolio given Oxford Nanopore’s chunky weighting at 24.6% of the net asset value, as at 30 June 2021.
As part of the IPO, existing shareholders were offered the possibility to sell up to 10% of their shareholding in Oxford Nanopore at the IPO price.
The biotech firm debuted at a price of 425p per share. The share price jumped as high as 47% in early trading, implying a market capitalisation just shy of £5bn.
Participating in the secondary share sale netted SUPP £11m and its remaining stake in Oxford Nanopore, based on the IPO price, is worth £99.2m. Combined with the proceeds of the sale, this represents a 21.4% uplift to the last disclosed fair value of the holding at 30 June 2021.
SUPP gave its blessing to Oxford Nanopore’s IPO earlier this month and anticipated selling down some of its 3.7% stake.
SUPP portfolio managers Tim Creed (pictured) and Roger Doig said: “We are proud to have supported Oxford Nanopore and its management team in its exciting development. Schroder UK Public Private Trust has been a supporter of Oxford Nanopore and this highly successful IPO underpins the quality of Oxford Nanopore’s technology and the commercial progress achieved over the last years.
“We remain highly confident in Oxford Nanopore’s ability to generate significant further shareholder value for the company in the mid- and long-term. We are also pleased that the listing will continue the further re-balancing of the company’s portfolio.”
Doig was appointed as a portfolio manager on 21 September after it was announced Ben Wicks was standing down to take a leave of absence from Schroders to go on paternity leave.
The news is unlikely to be welcomed by investors still trapped in Neil Woodford’s former Equity Income fund. The 6% Oxford Nanopore stake in his open-ended fund was sold by Link Fund Solutions to Acacia Research at a steep discount last summer during the fund’s wind-up.
