International Biotechnol... Share Discussion Threads

[philo124] 22/3/2015 07:57

Yep. Good sector not subject to deflationary pressures and very exciting future discoveries.

[rathlindri] 21/3/2015 20:48

Took a small holding here on friday morning, hopefully not too late! Have done well with the Axa Framlington Biogen unit trust fund over the last 12 months and I see quite an overlap in share holdings here....best of luck to us all

[gargleblaster] 06/3/2015 01:22

Amazing - I think the last little uplift is because 3% of the IBT portfolio was invested in Pharmacyclics which has just been taken-over by Abbvie. Although the takeout was not at a massive premium to the share price it puts a huge future premium on the value of its Imbruvica drug.

RBC Capital analyst Michael Yee said AbbVie is paying seven times the projected Imbruvica peak sales of $6bn – more than any recent takeover of a biotech firm. He explained: “There is scarcity value for drugs that ‘move the needle’ and those command a premium.”

Things are getting even hotter in the biotech space!

[philo124] 06/3/2015 00:37

Outstanding; 150% gain in 12 months!

[philo124] 23/1/2015 17:00

Ibt, biog, wwh; wish I had not taken profits on the way up. What great funds to have in your portfolio.

[gargleblaster] 23/1/2015 11:26

Amazing run - i just topped up yesterday which seems a bit crazy - but perhaps not so mad looking a couple of years down the track (and still a slight discount to nav).

[luckymouse] 23/1/2015 10:32

Marvellous

[philo124] 08/1/2015 08:22

Up 50% in 3 months and discount has narrowed from c25%.

[barnold] 08/1/2015 08:17

Still at over 10% discount to NAV but gap is closing and NAV is on a positive trend. One of my favourites in an exciting sector. Hopefully 2015 will be as good as 2014 and the trend continues...

[gargleblaster] 19/12/2014 12:58

Just noticed that the NAV is up by over 4% since yesterday!

[gargleblaster] 19/12/2014 12:56

Thanks for that Peter.

Going gangbusters at the moment!

[peter27] 19/12/2014 10:38

They are allowing unquoted investments to come to their natural end while making follow-on investments as may be appropriate but have said that they will pause entering any new unquoted companies. This is part of employing a more risk averse strategy and avoiding binary events. They think that the average 12% discount is 6% in line with the market and 6% because the market is attributing a 50% discount to the unquoted portion of the portfolio. This not mathematically exact but you get the idea. A widening discount will see more buy-backs but this will increase the unquoted weighting. They see more M & A and IPO exits. The management fee will fall from 1.15% to 0.9% wef 1 March 2015 to reflect the lower requirements to monitor uq investments.

[philo124] 18/12/2014 21:59

More tomorrow with the Dow up 700 points!

[gargleblaster] 18/12/2014 21:48

PS - the portfolio update today would only account for about a 1.2% increase in the NAV (5.7p), a relatively small part of today's rise.

[gargleblaster] 18/12/2014 21:36

Interesting Peter. Are you saying that they divested out of the unquoted's and re-invested back into the quoted's and this then gives a nudge up to the NAV? Any thing else of interest come up at the agm?

Thanks for the above, and in advance for any further info.

[peter27] 18/12/2014 18:17

At the AGM they said that they have decided to cease new unquoted investments on the basis that they are too speculative. An interesting decision considering that today's news has probably driven the price as it has added to NAV.

[gargleblaster] 18/12/2014 17:48

New closing high - glad I did not take any cash off the table now!

[peter27] 29/11/2014 17:15

It will be very interesting to be able to question them at the AGM in two weeks time.

[philo124] 29/11/2014 15:21

No I haven't but your summary is interesting and I will look out for it.

[gargleblaster] 29/11/2014 07:45

Phil - Have you read Jim Mellon's book "Cracking the code" - great read about the potential of Biotech. One of his main points is that governments around the world cannot afford to fund our aging populations and therefore are putting more faith/dependency on healthcare and biotech sectors - i.e. they need to get the drugs approved and they are on the side of the sector - not putting barriers in the way. So probably not recession proof but people will always need treatment, drugs etc.

[philo124] 28/11/2014 06:36

Not sure how long that will be but I read BIOG's latest accounts and it is certainly an exciting and bullish sector and promises real benefits for the whole world. I now also think that looking at 2015, where are investors going to find growth other than Bio and Tech? However are Bio and Tech really recession proof?

[gargleblaster] 28/11/2014 04:40

peter - being an investment trust, they have borrowing facilities, so presumably they have increased gearing. It does seem bold, as we have seen Biotech shares correct sharply at times. However perhaps the newer management see long term value - I think the older management would have been more conservative.

It can be a potential danger to always focus on the discount to nav (currently still about 12%). But in the long run this upward trend will continue imho. If of course they are correct then the additional borrowings boosts returns. As I said to Phil, I will only be looking to exit when this trust moves to a premium to its nav - which hopefully will be quite some time in the future.

[peter27] 27/11/2014 20:37

They obviously think the discount is too wide as they have bought back an amazing 12% in the last couple of days. Where has the cash come from???