London tech investor IP Group sells down portfolio for £15m – UKTN

Listed tech investor IP Group has banked £15m after selling down its portfolio, the firm said today as it looks to ramp up its share buyback programme.

The London-based business said it had made disposals of shares in nine of its portfolio companies, using the proceeds to increase its total spend on share buybacks to £45m.

The share disposals were made at a “small overall premium” to their valuations earlier this year, IP Group said, adding that on average the shares sold represent less than 10% of the firm’s holding in each of the companies.

IP Group shares rose 3.7% to 50p in early London trade.

CEO Greg Smith said: “This transaction creates new relationships with a group of long-term investors and further validates the quality of the Group’s portfolio and our valuation approach.

“IP Group has performed strongly in generating cash from exits this year at or above carrying values and we remain compelled by our portfolio and the opportunity to deliver impact and returns for shareholders.

“The board believes the current share price significantly undervalues the Group’s portfolio and has decided it will allocate all cash proceeds received from this secondary sale to our ongoing buyback.”

The latest sales mean IP Group has now received some £57m of cash proceeds from exits since the start of the year, a rise of nearly 50% compared to 2023 in signs of a rebound in startup valuations.

The firm expects to make another £134m from the sale of Featurespace, a developer of real-time artificial intelligence payments protection technology, that was acquired by Visa in September.

As of 30 November 2024, IP Group had £176m gross cash and deposits and holdings in listed companies were £167m, which together represented around 80% of its market cap at that date.

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