The Lemon Fool

Publication of Prospectus and Circular

The Companies have today issued a prospectus and circular relating to a proposed offer for subscription for ordinary shares of 1p each in Octopus AIM VCT plc and 0.01p each in Octopus AIM VCT 2 plc (“New Shares”) to raise up to £30 million, in aggregate, with an over allotment of up to a further £10 million, in aggregate (the “Offer”), following the approval of the prospectus from the Financial Conduct Authority.

Pursuant to agreements dated 19 August 2021 relating to the Offer between the Companies and Octopus Investments Limited, the Companies’ investment manager (the “Investment Manager”), which constitute smaller related party transactions within Listing Rule 11.1.10 R, the Investment Manager will receive:

an initial charge of 3 per cent of the gross funds raised under the Offer by the Companies; and

a further charge of up to 2.5 per cent of gross funds raised under the Offer by the Companies from investors who have not invested their money through a financial intermediary (“Direct Investors”); and

an additional ongoing charge of 0.5% per annum of the most recently announced net asset value multiplied by the number of New Shares allotted to Direct Investors for up to nine years, provided the Direct Investors continue to hold the New Shares.

The Offer is now open and will close at noon on 5 April 2022 for the 2021/2022 tax year and noon on 18 August 2022 for the 2022/2023 tax year, or earlier if the Offer is fully subscribed. The boards of the Companies reserve the right to close the Offer earlier.

Kidman wrote:If you have online access to your holding via the Registrar then you could check to see if the new shares have been added.

The NAV on 30 November 2021 was 90.8p per share, an increase on the NAV of 82.9p per share reported at 30 November 2020. Adding back the 5.9p of dividends paid in the year, to adjust the year end NAV to 96.7p, gives a total return of 16.6%. In the same year, the FTSE AIM All Share Index rose by 14.0%, the FTSE SmallCap (excluding investment companies) Index rose by 32.3% and the FTSE All Share Index rose by 17.4%, all on a total return basis.

Share Buybacks
During the year to 30 November 2021 the Company continued to buy back shares in the market from selling shareholders and purchased 5,472,527 ordinary shares for a total consideration of £4,973,000. We have maintained a discount of approximately 4.5% to NAV (equating to a 5.0% discount to the selling shareholder after costs), which the Board monitors and intends to retain as a policy which fairly balances the interests of both remaining and selling shareholders. Buybacks remain an essential practice for VCTs, as providing a means of selling is an important part of the initial investment decision and has enabled the Company to grow. As such I hope you will all support the appropriate resolution at the AGM.