Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust plc
Regulated Information Classification: Half Yearly Financial Report.
Results for the six months to 30 April 2021
Since 1 February 2014, the Company has been invested in a diversified portfolio of companies which individually offer significant long term growth potential and typically have a market capitalisation of less than US$5bn at the time of initial investment.
- Over the six month period, the Company's net asset value per share increased by 24.9% while the comparative index* increased by 30.3%. The share price rose by 24.5%.
- During the period, the Company issued 44,085,000 shares at a premium to its net asset value, raising net proceeds of £159,784,000. Since then a further 3,875,000 shares have been issued raising a further £12,515,000.
- The net revenue return per share was a negative 0.31p (six months to 30 April 2020: negative 0.18p). No interim dividend is being recommended.
- A number of the Company's holdings contributed to absolute performance, notably: Tesla (electric vehicles, autonomous driving and solar energy); QuantumScape (batteries for electric cars); Upwork, (online freelancing and recruitment services platform); and Appian (enterprise software developer).
- As at 30 April 2021 the Company's unlisted exposure was 7.9% of total assets, comprised of 11 unlisted investments: Akili Interactive Labs; Astranis Space Technologies; Epic Games; Graphcore; KSQ Therapeutics; Oxford Nanopore Technologies; PsiQuantum; Reaction Engines; Relativity Space; Space Exploration Technologies and Spire Global.
- Short term cycles of exaggerated investor behaviour tend to come and go, but company fundamentals prevail over the longer term. The long duration cycles of innovation and technological advancement to which the portfolio is aligned remain very robust and we remain hugely excited about how the portfolio will develop over the coming years and decades.
* S&P Global Small Cap Index total return (in sterling terms). See disclaimer at the end of this announcement.
For a definition of terms see Glossary of Terms and Alternative Performance Measures (see note 12).
Past performance is not a guide to future performance.
Edinburgh Worldwide aims to achieve long term capital growth by investing primarily in listed companies throughout the world. The Company has total assets of £1,439.1 million (before deduction of loans of £46.7 million) as at 30 April 2021.
Edinburgh Worldwide is managed by Baillie Gifford, the Edinburgh based fund management group with around £325 billion under management and advice as at 2 June 2021.