In its half-year results for the six months to 30 June 2021, RiverFort Global Opportunities (RGO) said the ‘excellent progress’ made during 2020 has continued through to 1H21.
For the 1H21 period, the London-listed investment firm reported profit before tax of £1.4m (1H20:£1.5m) and a significant increase in net asset value of 32% since 31 December 2020.
Philip Haydn-Slater, Non-Executive Chairman of RiverFort, commented: "The Company's excellent performance for 2020 has continued into 2021, with the Company continuing to generate an attractive level of investment income and to grow its net asset value.”
During the period, the Company said it had generated a total investment income of £2m from its investment portfolio, ‘with this level of profit being underpinned by strong cash generation.’
During the period, the Company generated ‘substantial cash’ through its generation of investment returns thereby providing it with a significant cash balance for further investment and enabling it to pay a final dividend which was declared on 16 June 2021, it told investors.
The final gross dividend amounted to 0.04 pence per share, which would make a total of 0.06 pence per share for the year or equivalent to a gross yield of 4.1% at the current share price.
In 1H, RiverFort made pre-IPO investments in Pluto Digital Assets, a software technology company and operator in the decentralised finance ("DeFi") and non-fungible tokens ("NFT") and Smarttech247, a profitable artificial intelligence based cyber security cloud business.
In May 2021, Riverfort announced a plan to raise £1.64m to provide funds for further investment and to fund the investment into Smarttech247 which was unveiled at that time.
In June 2021, the Company recorded its second profitable year within its FY20 results.
The Group said it had been actively deploying its investment capital by investing principally in listed junior companies through debt and equity linked products. It said these investment structures lower volatility and risk, enabling the Company to drive profits and cash income.
“Going forward, we believe that the Company has a very attractive portfolio of investments which not only has the scope to achieve income with downside protection but the significant upside potential to generate substantial capital gains as a result of carefully chosen pre-IPO investments whilst, at the same time, being able to provide real cash returns to shareholders," added Haydn-Slater.
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