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Strong demand from wholesale investors for pre-IPO Opportunities Fund

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Strong demand from wholesale investors seeking to invest in the unlisted space has seen Perennial Value attract $50 million only weeks after the firm announced its plans for a new Private to Public Opportunities Fund. The Private to Public Opportunities Fund will close on 16 August 2019.

“We’ve been very pleased by the strong demand from wholesale investors for this new Fund, in particular high net wealth and family office investors. They recognise there’s a gap in the market for opportunities to invest in early-stage companies requiring growth capital,” said Perennial Value Managing Director John Murray.

The new fund is an extension of the Perennial Value Microcap Opportunities Trust, which has a successful track record of investing in private companies that have since become public. This microcap fund has now hard closed after reaching the targeted capacity of $200 million, having returned 30.4% p.a. net of fees since inception.

Examples include EcoFibre (ASX: EOF), Atomos (ASX: AMS), and Uniti Wireless (ASX: UWL). These stocks have generated returns of 444%, 360% and 538% respectively from Perennial’s unlisted investments as at the end of July 2019.

Ahead of the fund’s launch, Perennial’s investment team has identified six unlisted opportunities for wholesale investors. These include:

  • Equiem, is a global leader in tenant experience software and is gaining strong traction in the US and UK.
  • Lumitron, a low dose x-ray company born out of the California-based Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
  • Nutricare, a producer of bamboo-based, plastic-free wound care protection products.

Andrew Smith, Perennial’s Head of Smaller Companies and Microcaps, said they are leading the second round of investment into Nutricare.

“Nutricare is fast becoming a substantial player in the global wound care market under the brand name Patch. Following the success of our investment last year, we’re providing further expansion capital to help the company continue its rapid growth in all regions including Australia, the US, Europe, Middle East and South Africa,” Mr Smith said.

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