The Lemon Fool

Today's post brought two memoranda from Downing offering new share classes for Downing 4 VCT plc.

One can subscribe for the generalist or the healthcare class or both. The offers are for £20m and £10m respectively.
In both cases the minimum is £5,000 and the dividend policy is "at least 4% from year 4 onwards".

I was a bit surprised to see such a specialist VCT offering as healthcare, the last such VCT that I remember was ProVen Health which was merged into ProVen Growth and Income some years ago. Could be interesting if the fund manager is as good as they intimate.

I was a bit surprised to see such a specialist VCT offering as healthcare

I'm a bit cautious on specialist VCTs. They can rocket or burn. I prefer a steadier approach.
Has anyone any opinions on the Downing Generalist Offer? The prospectus states that

The existing investments and cash attributable to the Existing Shares will be kept separate from the proceeds of
the issue of the Generalist Shares and Healthcare Shares, which will be administered as separate investment
pools.

from which I take it that this is a new issue - not a top up. And the reasons given for the new issue include:-

As each of the Company’s existing share pools operates a ‘planned exit’ strategy, over time the Company is
currently expected to reduce in size. The Offers will increase the size of the Company, allowing all Shareholders
to benefit from being able to spread the burden of fixed VCT running costs over a greater asset base.

This doesn't strike me as the most compelling reason from an investor's point of view - so I don't think it tops my list of possible VCT investments, but it may make it onto the list of second bests if I don't get lucky with my top choices.

So anyone's views would be welcome

scotia wrote:

I was a bit surprised to see such a specialist VCT offering as healthcare

I'm a bit cautious on specialist VCTs. They can rocket or burn. I prefer a steadier approach.
Has anyone any opinions on the Downing Generalist Offer? The prospectus states that

The existing investments and cash attributable to the Existing Shares will be kept separate from the proceeds of
the issue of the Generalist Shares and Healthcare Shares, which will be administered as separate investment
pools.

from which I take it that this is a new issue - not a top up. And the reasons given for the new issue include:-

As each of the Company’s existing share pools operates a ‘planned exit’ strategy, over time the Company is
currently expected to reduce in size. The Offers will increase the size of the Company, allowing all Shareholders
to benefit from being able to spread the burden of fixed VCT running costs over a greater asset base.

This doesn't strike me as the most compelling reason from an investor's point of view - so I don't think it tops my list of possible VCT investments, but it may make it onto the list of second bests if I don't get lucky with my top choices.

So anyone's views would be welcome

Hi scotia,

Did you come to any conclusions? - I'm also interested to get opinions on this offer if anyone has more insight.

Cheers,
P

Hi scotia,

Did you come to any conclusions?

I await more promising (and likely popular) offers - but if I fail to get them, then its probably more AIM VCTs (which don't seem to be so popular) - or possibly Downing

The Healthcare offer will be going into the £10Mio over allotment facility, per below;

http://tools.morningstar.co.uk/tsweu6nq ... 6029707629