Ip Share Discussion Threads

[cheshire man] 05/8/2021 11:39

A solid hold for me :-)

[masurenguy] 05/8/2021 10:00

I also topped up with a few more at 122p.

[bamboo2] 05/8/2021 08:58

Added 10k at 121.6
Anticipating a possible low turn.

[p1nkfish] 05/8/2021 08:51

Have to get through the end of May beginning of June top else it might have double topped until some catalyst arrives.

Post divi, if no new news, no surprise if ebbs back below 120p and discount to NAV widens.

LTH.

[p1nkfish] 05/8/2021 08:47

Med-long term this is highly likely to offer a very good return.
In the meantime the impatient will jump out and offer a chance to add.
The discount to NAV shouldn't be too shocking, not unexpected by me anyway.

Also hold a wadge of Spirent, the reaction to their results today is in contrast as they are closer to new tech action resulting in cash-flow of a more reliable and immediate type.

[bamboo2] 05/8/2021 08:37

Mas, if later today we see a few sell trades under 122, I am looking to add.
If not, like pink, will continue to hold.

I would be happy to see some buyback at 10% discount, as this reduces the bottom line cost of the scrip.

Pierre, yes looking good. A very detailed update.

Will add Athenex chart to the chart listing in post 1

[p1nkfish] 05/8/2021 08:24

Longer period of consolidation likely.
Really depends on risk on/off attitude of market.
LTH.

[pierre oreilly] 05/8/2021 08:16

Excellent. Divi, buyback, cash, nano.Must say, I'm just a little disappointed in the nav, but everything else is spot on, and the nav will anyhow get a couple of hundred mill boost on the nano float Imv. Their portfolio valuation is Uber conservative too, which is no bad thing.Strong hold for me, and probably a great buy ATM with nano and buyback situation.

[masurenguy] 05/8/2021 08:15

Hi bamboo2 - little market reaction so far to a set of positive interims and a 10% discount to NAV!

[bamboo2] 05/8/2021 07:56

NAV at 135.4, excludes any uplift in ONT valuation since the raising this Spring.

In its 2020 annual report and financial statements, Oxford Nanopore reports revenue growth of 119% to GBP113.9m (2019: GBP52.1m).

Interim Dividend [XD 12/8/2021] .48p

£20m earmarked for buyback.

[bamboo2] 05/8/2021 07:44

FOR RELEASE ON 05 August 2021

("IP Group" or "the Group" or "the Company")

Half-yearly results

Strong return, significant cash realisations,

capital recycled for growth alongside interim dividend and share buyback

IP Group plc (LSE: IPO), the developer of intellectual property-based businesses, today announces its financial results for the six months ended 30 June 2021.

Half-year highlights

-- Strong Return on Hard NAV[1] of GBP117.9m, or 9%, (HY20: GBP14.2m; FY20: GBP189.5m)
-- Hard NAV[2] of GBP1,439.3m or 135.4 pence per share (HY20: GBP1,156.4m or 108.8pps; FY20: GBP1,331.5m or 125.3pps)

-- Cash realisations of GBP111.4m (HY20: GBP113.7m; FY20: GBP191.0m)
-- Sustained investment into portfolio: GBP69.5m into 41 companies (HY20 GBP36.9m; FY20: GBP67.5m)

-- Interim dividend of 0.48p per share and GBP20m allocated to buying back the Group's shares
Portfolio highlights

-- Fair value of portfolio: GBP1,246.4m (HY20: GBP1,025.0m; FY20: GBP1,162.7m)
-- Net portfolio gains of GBP143.1m (HY20: GBP34.9m; FY20: GBP231.4m)
-- Sales of Inivata Ltd to NeoGenomics, Inc, WaveOptics Ltd to Snap, Inc and Kuur Therapeutics Ltd to Athenex, Inc.

-- Oxford Nanopore announced it has begun preparations for a potential IPO
-- Total funds raised by portfolio companies: Approximately GBP1.0bn (HY20 GBP365m; FY20: GBP1.1bn) including Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd (GBP202m), Centessa Pharmaceuticals Ltd (US$630m/GBP457m), Pulmocide Ltd (US$92m/GBP67m committed, US$25m/GBP18m invested) and MOBILion (US$60m/GBP43m)[3]

Other financial and operational highlights

-- Net assets GBP1,439.7m (HY20: GBP1,156.8m; FY20: GBP1,331.9m)
-- Profit of GBP116.5m (HY20: GBP11.7m; FY20: GBP185.4m)
-- Strong liquidity with gross cash and deposits at 30 June 2021 of GBP308.9m (HY20: GBP245.3m; FY20: GBP270.3m) and Net Cash[4] of GBP249.4m (HY20: GBP170.5m; FY20: GBP203.0m)

-- North American platform, IP Group, Inc secured additional funding, bringing total raised in H1 to US$59m (GBP43m(3) )

-- Joint venture formed with China Everbright Ltd to launch first third-party fund in China
Alan Aubrey, Chief Executive of IP Group, said: "IP Group has continued to make strong headway in 2021 with much activity in the portfolio. Three companies have been sold for significant returns, one company has floated on Nasdaq and Oxford Nanopore Technologies, our largest holding, has confirmed it is planning an IPO in the second half of the year.

The Group has delivered strong financial performance in the first half with a Return on Hard NAV of 9% and cash realisations of GBP111.4m. As a result, we are following our maiden full year 2020 dividend with an interim dividend and have allocated GBP20m of our capital to commence a buyback of the Group's shares.

I am delighted to report that the company is in a strong financial position with Net Cash of GBP249.4m. This financial strength provides important flexibility in the face of uncertainty caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and enables us to support our portfolio with scale-up capital alongside co-investors. We continue to be excited by the prospects for the second half of the year including the opportunities our portfolio businesses have from the renewed focus on innovation and sustainability."

Webinar

IP Group will host a webinar for analysts and investors today, 10:00 GMT.

[the crypt] 05/8/2021 07:37

You foolish person

[bamboo2] 03/8/2021 08:52

Definitely.

Price had drifted on mostly very low volume days.

Update on Thursday, with an online presentation. Have your questions ready.

I might ask about the deadline for the ONT prospectus.

[cheshire man] 02/8/2021 16:23

Nice start to the week :-)

[bamboo2] 28/7/2021 21:57

Artios Pharma in Cambridge has raised $153 million Series C cash to advance its portfolio of cancer drug candidates, including its Pol theta program which will enter clinical development later in 2021.

Omega Funds in Boston and TCG X in New York and California led the seminal round for the Babraham-based business.

Artios is a leading DNA Damage Response company exploiting a broad DDR-based platform and small molecule drug discovery capabilities to develop a diverse pipeline of product candidates for the treatment of cancer.

Additional investors in an oversubscribed round included Avidity Partners, Invus, Deep Track Capital, Sofinnova Partners, Tetragon Financial Group, RTW Investments LP, Soleus Capital, Piper Heartland Healthcare Capital, CaaS Capital Management, and Schroders Capital.

They join existing investors Arix Bioscience plc, SV Health Investors, Andera Partners, LSP (Life Sciences Partners), M Ventures, Pfizer Ventures, IP Group plc and Novartis Venture Fund who also continue to support Artios.

Dr Niall Martin, chief executive officer at Artios, said: “We are thrilled to have such great investors support our vision in this latest Series C fundraise co-led by Omega Funds and TCG X alongside a premier group of new and existing investors. This is an exciting time for Artios as we continue to progress our potential best-in-class ATR program in the clinic and prepare to launch our Pol theta program into first-in-human studies in the second half of 2021.

“By ensuring that our DDR platform and pipeline programs are well-funded, we have successfully cleared a runway to execute our near-term clinical objectives.

“Having this calibre of strategic investors supporting our mission to bring next-generation DDR programs targeting hard to treat cancers to market adds further validation to Artios’ cancer-killing DDR Platform.”

The Series C financing follows an $84m Series B raise concluded in August 2018 and yields total capital raised to date from investors and strategic partners of more than $320m. Artios is led by an experienced scientific and leadership team with proven expertise in DDR drug discovery, including the discovery and early development of the PARP inhibitor Olaparib.

It has a unique partnership with Cancer Research UK and collaborations with leading DNA repair researchers worldwide, such as The Institute of Cancer Research, London, the Netherlands Cancer Institute and the Crick Institute, London.

In December 2020, Artios entered into a collaboration agreement with Merck KGaA in Germany to identify and develop precision oncology medicines targeting nucleases.

And in April, Artios struck a similar deal with Novartis to identify DDR targets to use with Novartis’ proprietary radioligand therapies with Artios receiving a $20 million up-front payment in addition to near term research funding to support the collaboration.

Artios is eligible to receive up to $1.3 billion in discovery, development, regulatory and sales-based milestones in addition to royalty payments. Anchored at the Babraham Research Campus in Cambridge, UK, the company also has an office in New York City.

[bamboo2] 28/7/2021 15:55

wba, if you change the lower case h to a capital H, the link becomes live.



There are few other orders on the TED [European] website too.

[wba1] 28/7/2021 15:04

I will be very interested to see the prospectus view on 2021 revenue (and outlook) for the ONT float. We know (as it was published by the govt) that ONT secured a 2 year contract valued at £113m last November, so it can be assumed this is worth >£50m in 2021 t/o. There have also been multiple other British government contracts worth circa £10m awarded in the last 6 months, most of which seem to be for consumables and likely to be accounted for in 2021. The Times said (in March) that total UK government contracts in the previous six months were £140m. I am unsure whether the delegated authority for health matters to the Scottish and Welsh governments means they will have also placed separate contracts. Then you have overseas govt orders (the FPDS system at hxxps://www.fpds.gov/fpdsng_cms/index.php/en/ shows circa £5m of US govt orders alone in the last 18 months). Add in private sector orders (including universities and research labs) and I will be disappointed if 2021 t/o is forecast at less than £200m.

I am slightly less bullish than Bamboo on 2020 t/o, but only because normal accounting should assign the t/o to date of delivery rather than award of contract/invoice date. This is likely to mean much of the 2020 contract awards is accounted in 2021. Hopefully ONT will give numbers for their order book as well as accounted t/o in the prospectus, although this will need to be interpreted with some care as future revenue is dependent on consumables whilst the order book will be largely capital spend for kit.

[bamboo2] 28/7/2021 13:50

End of financial year for ONT was December 31 2020 and accounts are due to be filed by latest end of September 2021. I would therefore assume that the deadline for the ONT Prospectus might be around the same date. This would work well for a listing in October.

My chart has a number of possible turns showing for mid-October [15th] 2021

[bamboo2] 27/7/2021 11:42

wba, assuming IPGroup have taken a dilution, it does follow that the unit cost [to new investors] of Artois must have increased. As you say we will know more very soon, one way or another.

Following the recent webinars, it is clear there is a considerable level of positive activity in the p/f from others in addition to ONT, Artois, Feature space and Garrison.

========================================================

Mas, I am not an accountant and have taken a simplistic view to get to 148.7

This comprises

NAV 31 Dec 2020 125.3p.
P/f NAV increases since £89 million approx 8.4p share.
(See cordwainer post [1303] and my life sciences post [1307])
ONT 15p {based on Gordon Sanghera's suggestion value of co will double every year until 2025]

ONT t/o for 2019 was approx £52m. Using various sources I have calculated 2020 t/o at £120-£130m
[edit, sources include orders that may not have have been invoiced before the end of the financial year]

[masurenguy] 27/7/2021 10:39

Hi Bamboo2 - I think that accepting some dilution to mitigate risk is a prudent policy for management to adopt at this time. In your post #1304 you came up with a projected Nav figure of approx 148.7p. Do you think, that as a result of some dilution, that this may now be slightly to the high side. I assume that they will come up with a current Nav figure when they report next week.

[wba1] 27/7/2021 10:29

bamboo2;
I understand dilution but I would have expected the unit cost to the new investors to have increased with a follow through impact on the IP valuation. Given the developments this year it would be surprising if new investors were able to enter based on a similar company valuation to IP's view at end 2020. However, this should become clearer later this year (and again reinforces the benefit of looking at our partners valuations). It should be possible to see the implied value from the Series C round by looking at the % shareholding in Artios and carry value in the next report from the likes of RTW Venture Fund. I do see Artios as significant to IP, both as a potential unicorn and a possible takeover target for big pharma.

On the broader point of materiality, I agree we should not generally get concerned about small variation. My point was that the Itaconix hit is not material, especially if the question around Ieso (where the impact is potentially circa 5x bigger but still much less than 1% of portfolio value) is not material. On Ieso the real underlying question is why 2 major shareholders should have such a different view on valuation.

To my mind IP is mainly a play (in the medium term) on a small number of companies. Obviously ONT, but potentially including Artios, Featurespace and Garrison. Hinge is obviously in there as well, but I see this as already pretty fully valued.

[bamboo2] 27/7/2021 09:35

wba, The value of the companies in the p/f are changing all the time. The company go to considerable effort to calculate these using different methods in a fair manner and this is described in the Annual results. I personally am not sure it is worth worrying too much about individual positions changing by less than 1% of NAV.

Re Artois, As I said above, management seem content to swap some dilution for a reduction in risk and I guess this is why, despite the extra cash now held by Artois, the value on the [IPGroup] books is flat.

It's a similar risk reduction story with the recent Centessa deal, and others over the last eighteen months.

[wba1] 27/7/2021 09:15

The ITX effect would be a reduction in value circa £1m (based on a 25% reduction and £35m market cap) so far less significant than the question I raised earlier about Ieso.

I am surprised at the 'no material change in carrying value' comment re Artios. I would have expected a successful C round on this scale with multiple new investors to signal an increase. I wonder if IP are taking a rather conservative view and will be interested to see how others amend carrying values. This is why it is worth looking at the views of other investors on our companies - good or bad. Tbf, IP may define material change as relating to the impact on IP portfolio value rather than the change to the particular company.

[eeza] 27/7/2021 09:01

ITX taking a pounding after TU. IPO recently supported fund raise at 12.1p.

[bamboo2] 27/7/2021 08:51

Kyle Blankenship
Managing Editor

Biopharma is constantly on the hunt for the next generation of targeted oncology drugs to effectively wipe out cancer cells. But to keep those tumors gone, biotechs like Artios, now the recipient of a fundraising megaround, are using the cells’ own damage repair mechanisms against them.

Artios Pharma has snagged a $153 million C round to help drive the UK-based biotech’s lead candidates targeting DNA damage repair factors — proteins that help knit together damaged DNA — through the clinic, the biotech said Tuesday.

Artios’ two lead candidates look to induce synthetic lethality with inhibitors targeting the ATR kinase and pol theta, both proteins implicated in human cells’ damage repair pathway, and effectively shutting down tumor cells’ ability to heal themselves.

The round was co-led by Omega Funds and TCG X with participation from a deep roster of new crossover investors, including Avidity Partners, Invus, Deep Track Capital, Sofinnova Partners, Tetragon Financial Group, RTW Investments, Soleus Capital, Piper Heartland Healthcare Capital, CaaS Capital Management and Schroders Capital. Existing investors include Arix Bioscience, SV Health Investors, Andera Partners, LSP, M Ventures, Pfizer Ventures, IP Group, and the Novartis Venture Fund.

As part of the raise, Michelle Doig, Omega’s partner and head of corporate development, and TCG X’s founding managing partner Chen Yu will join the board.

“Artios’ DDR programs have been validated by large pharma partnerships which speak to the promise of their science and strategy,” Yu said in a statement.

The newest raise puts Artios’ total fundraise at $320 million following an $84 million Series B back in August 2018. The round also comes just months after Artios scored a major R&D partnership with Novartis, which intends to use the biotech’s discovery engine to churn up DDR drugs that will pair well with the Swiss drugmaker’s growing radioligand pipeline.

In April, Novartis agreed to shell out $20 million upfront and up to $1.3 billion in biobucks for up to three molecules from Artios, which has its own ATR inhibitor in Phase I human trials. The Novartis pact was the second major discovery deal to which Artios has signed its name after the biotech decided in December to work with Germany’s Merck KGaA on small molecule drugs targeting DNA repair enzymes — a deal that brought $30 million upfront and the potential for $865 million in downstream payments.

The crossover between Novartis’ radioligand portfolio, including late-stage molecule 177Lu-PSMA-617 for prostate cancer, and DDR-targeted inhibitors is a no-brainer, CEO Niall Martin told Endpoints News in April. DDR is implicated in the exact repair processes involved in making cells damaged by radiation whole. By inducing synthetic lethality in the pathway involved in that repair, Artios believes its candidates could help double down on the efficacy of Novartis’ drugs.