Octopus launches twin trusts

Octopus Asset Management, the operator of four venture capital trusts – namely, Eclipse 1 and 2, BioScience and Phoenix VCT – has revealed it is seeking to raise up to £60 million through a new twin investment vehicle.

Octopus Asset Management, the operator of four venture capital trusts – namely, Eclipse 1 and 2, BioScience and Phoenix VCT – has revealed it is seeking to raise up to £60 million through a new twin investment vehicle.
 
Eclipse 3 and Eclipse 4 will be launched at the same time and will make identical investments. The Octopus team claim this will enable them to put up to £2 million into portfolio companies. In turn, this should allow the trusts to ‘invest in larger, more developed [and therefore lower-risk] companies’. An additional benefit for investors should be an anticipated reduction in costs, with annual running expenses capped at 2.9 per cent of net assets.
 
Due to the proposed focus on later-stage investments, trust chairman Gregory Melgaard predicts that Eclipse 3 & 4 will be able to ‘sell some of its investments more quickly than VCTs that focus on earlier-stage companies’.

Leslie Copeland

Leslie Copeland

Leslie was made Editor for Growth Company Investor magazine in 2000, then headed up the launch of Business XL magazine, and then became Editorial Director in 2007 for the online and print publication portfolio...

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