Sequoia Economic Infrastructure Income Fund Limited
(“SEQI” or the “Company”)
Net Asset Value as at 28 February 2020 and Investment Update
The NAV for SEQI, the specialist investor in economic infrastructure debt, increased to 106.36p from the prior month's NAV of 105.55p per share.
The changes in NAV arose primarily through:
- Interest income net of expenses of 0.74p;
- A decrease of 0.02p in asset valuations; and
- Unhedged FX gains of 0.09p.
- As at 28 February 2020, the Company had cash of GBP68.5m and had drawn GBP224m on its GBP280m RCF. The Company also had undrawn commitments on existing investments collectively valued at GBP116.6m.
The Company's invested portfolio comprised of 60 private debt investments and 14 infrastructure bonds across 8 sectors and 30 sub-sectors. It had an annualised yield-to-maturity (or yield-to-worst in the case of callable bonds) of 8.3% and a weighted average life of approximately 4.1 years. Private debt investments represented 91% of the total portfolio and 70% of the portfolio comprised floating rate assets. The weighted average purchase price of the Company's investments was 96.4% of par. Investments which are pre-operational represented 13.0% of total assets.
The Company's invested portfolio remains geographically diverse with 49% located across the US, 15% in the UK, 30% in Europe, and 6% in Australia/New Zealand. Currently the Company is not investing in Portugal or Italy but has selectively invested in opportunities in Spain. The Company's pipeline of economic infrastructure debt investments remains strong and is diversified by sector, sub-sector, and jurisdiction.
At month end, approximately 100% of the Company's NAV consisted of either Sterling assets or was hedged into Sterling. The Company has adequate resources to cover the cash costs associated with its hedging activities.
The Company's settled investment activities during February include:
- An $65.0m secondary senior loan to Expedient Data Centers Senior Secured 2026 backed by a portfolio of 11 tenanted data centres in the US;
- An $32.0m primary loan to SAPA 2020-1A, an aircraft securitisation backed by a portfolio of 21 aircraft assets on lease to 19 lessees located in 19 jurisdictions;
- An additional $2.0m disbursement to Bourzou Equity, a company created for the construction of a data centre in Virginia;
- An additional NOK 2.0m secondary acquisition of Exmar's variable rate bonds maturing in 2022, backed by LNG and LPG vessels; and
- An additional $14.2m disbursement to Sunrun Radcliffe, a leader in the US residential solar market.
The following investments were sold or prepaid in February:
- GBP20m Prism BidCo Senior Secured 2020, a portfolio of ten neurorehabilitation care homes in the UK; and
- $2m Apollo Aviation 2016-2 B, a USD aircraft securitization.
Post 28 February 2020 NAV Date activity
On 9 March 2020, the Company received GBP296.6m of net proceeds from the recent oversubscribed equity issue. The Board is therefore pleased to confirm that 267,857,142 new Ordinary Shares have since been issued at a price of 112.0 pence per share.
On 9 March, the Company repaid the outstanding GBP224m RCF balance in full using proceeds from the Initial Issue, and as of 13 March, the Company will have deployed an additional GBP44.2m in its pipeline of opportunities since closing, resulting in a net cash balance as at publication of this report of GBP28.4m. The total liquidity currently available to the Company is therefore GBP308.4m which includes cash and undrawn amounts on the Company's Revolving Credit Facility.
Update on COVID-19 and Market Summary
In light of the fluid COVID-19 situation, the Investment Adviser continues to assess its potential effect on the Company's portfolio. At the time of the publication of this report, the Investment Adviser has not observed any material negative impacts on the valuation of the portfolio. The Investment Adviser and the Board are monitoring the situation closely and any potential impact on the portfolio on an ongoing basis. In terms of deployment, the Investment Adviser is continuing to see attractive economic infrastructure debt opportunities into which the remaining cash will be deployed.
Yet as more than 119,000 people have been infected by COVID-19 worldwide, global markets have struggled to find even footing after a rough month that hit the equity markets particularly hard with US stocks halting trading after falling 7% on 9 March.
Both the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have announced emergency rate cuts of 50 bps to cushion the economic impact of COVID-19, yet the UK economy was showing signs of stagnation before the virus impact took hold with flat GDP growth in January compared to December.
The ECB has recently suggested that further loosening of monetary policy would only be effective in conjunction with coordinated fiscal stimulus by EU governments, but there has yet to be agreement amongst member states as to the best course of action to prevent further economic declines.