IP Group’s portfolio grows in value

The group is helping to develop companies from 10 universities including Leeds and York. In the year ended December 31 2011, IP Group’s net assets increased to £221.6m from £173.1m.

The adjusted profit before tax was £500,000, compared with £1.8m the year before. The value of the company’s 10 largest holdings was £89m, which was an increase on the £81.3m recorded the year before.

Over the year, Tissue Regenix Group, the York-based company which grows replacement body parts, completed a £25m placing.

Alan Aubrey, the chief executive of IP Group, said: “2011 was a year of significant progress for the group with the material strengthening of the company’s balance sheet, enabling us to step up the level of capital deployed in our portfolio companies. Despite continued economic uncertainty, this year the value of the group’s portfolio has increased, the group’s portfolio companies have raised significantly more new capital and the group has recorded more realisations than in 2010.

“We continue to believe that innovation remains strategically important to the UK economy and that the group is strongly placed to play a central role in helping commercialise UK innovation. Our most valuable portfolio company, Oxford Nanopore, recently announced that it intends to start selling a DNA sequencer the size of a USB memory stick for less than $900 this year. This marked a pivotal moment for both companies that further supports the group’s long-term strategy and exemplifies the quality of technology seen in our portfolio.Since the year end, the group’s quoted portfolio companies have seen a net increase in fair value of £10m.

“Our strong cash position coupled with the excellent progress being made across the portfolio gives us renewed confidence that the group will generate significant long-term returns for shareholders.”