Oxford Tech VCT3 and other VCTs, and the Coronavirus Bandwagon

One of my shareholdings, Oxford Technology VCT3 (OTT), fell 44% this morning. Am I concerned? No because I have only ever held 10 shares in the company. I cannot even recall why I bought the shares back in 2014 but it was probably to keep an eye on their interest in unlisted Ixaris Group Holdings Ltd. That company was a major part of their portfolio and was still 65% of the net assets at the 29 February. It is also held by other VCTs. To quote from the ITT annual report, issued today, “For OT3 the initial Covid-19 pain has been most strongly felt by Ixaris, a travel payments company as a result of knock on impacts from Thomas Cook’s failure and a decline in Asian travel. Subsequent to our year end the downward pressure has increased on Ixaris with major airline disruption”. It also discloses that Ixaris received an offer during the financial year which would have meant a major exit at an uplifted price, but it collapsed at the last minute.

As a former director of Ixaris, and a very minor shareholder still, I was aware of this bad news. It looks like they are almost back at square one. That is the nature of early stage venture capital. Two steps forward and one step back, or vice versa in this case. I always took a sceptical view of the value put on Ixaris by OTT and other VCTs as I always considered it a highly risky investment.

OTT also wrote down Orthogem as it was sold for a nominal amount. This is what they said about that: “Although Orthogem had made significant technical progress with the launch of its putty product and appointment of international distributors, it was unable to raise sufficient funding to be able to continue to trade.  The OT VCTs were willing to continue supporting the company, especially given we believed the company was very close to commercial success, but the VCT rules governing the age of companies and the use to which any new funds can be applied prevented us from doing so”. VCT rules are now preventing some follow-on investments.

OTT also has a holding in listed Scancell (SCLP) which OTT says has had a moderate uplift after announcing the start of its research programme to develop a Covid-19 vaccine. They also say this: “Scancell is our third largest holding and had a disappointing year of regulatory and clinical delays in its flagship melanoma trial and its share price fell over the course of the year. Its planned Phase 2 combination trial with their initial product SCIB1 ran into difficulties with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) due to the delayed approval by the FDA of the upgraded delivery device from 3rd party Ichor. In the event, the trials started in the UK later than expected. Subsequently the required US approvals were received but a year has been lost and results will now be correspondingly delayed. Post period end the UK trial went on hold as a result of Covid-19 risks. Nevertheless good data from these trials could represent a significant value inflection point for Scancell and are eagerly awaited”.

There were big hopes for Scancell a few years ago but that has long since evaporated and revenue has remained at zero. It’s a typical story of early stage drug development companies which I avoid for that reason.

The Net Asset Value of OTT fell by 33% from the previous year-end, and hence the share price drop on what is a very illiquid share, like most VCTs. Normally VCTs are immune to general stock market fluctuations but not in the current recession. Some of my VCT holdings have fallen sharply no doubt because of downward valuations of some of their unlisted holdings but also because of sharp falls in many AIM shares which are a significant proportion of some VCT portfolios. This has also been compounded by the halt to share buy-backs in some VCTs – the result is just a few shareholders selling causing a sharp fall in their share prices.

Are their opportunities in VCT shares appearing, or should I be selling also? Perhaps is the answer, but VCT shares I consider to be very long-term holdings with a lot of the value coming from their tax-free dividends. I only tend to sell when I have lost confidence in the board or the investment manager.

As with the mention above of Scancell, almost all biotechnology companies are now trying to get into the coronavirus space by developing interests in vaccines, antibody tests and diagnostic products. Such an entry does wonders for the share prices. This ranges from the very largest companies such as Astrazeneca and Glaxosmithkline who are both gearing up for vaccine production to the smallest start-ups. One example announced today is that of Renalytix AI (RENX) who announced a joint venture with the Mount Sinai school of medicine to produce Covid-19 antibody test kits. RENX are focused on renal diseases which is why I picked up this news as I have an interest in this area but I do not hold the shares – historically no revenue to date. But RENX will only have a minority interest in the joint venture. I would not get too excited about this, particularly as it is possible that the epidemic will die out and there are lots of people producing test kits. But the company may be of interest otherwise as it does seem to be making some progress in renal diagnostics. There are 40-45,000 premature deaths in the UK every year due to kidney disease so you can see that it is comparable to the coronavirus epidemic and with still no effective treatments.

The coronavirus epidemic is clearly creating a bandwagon for companies to jump on. That can be a minefield for investors. Or to put it another way, an enormous amount of venture capital is being put into research of treatments and diagnostic production. It may produce results sooner or later, but a lot of the investment might produce nothing.

Lastly, it’s worth covering the dire economic gloom. Unemployment has reached record levels and Rolls-Royce (RR.) are making 9,000 employees redundant as new aero engine demand will clearly be non-existent for some time – maybe years.

To quote from the FT: “Rishi Sunak [Chancellor] has warned that the economy may not immediately bounce back from the corona-virus crisis and could suffer permanent scarring, as jobless claims soared at a record rate to more than 2 million. The chancellor struck a sombre note on a day that saw the biggest month-on-month increase in out of work benefits claims since records began in 1971. A further 10 million are now precariously relying on the state to pay their wages. He said ‘We are likely to face a severe recession, the likes of which we haven’t seen, and, of course, that will have an impact on employment’”.

Some of my readers may be facing redundancy or soon will be. Clearly we are living in exceptional times, but on a personal note it’s worth mentioning that I have been out of a job more than once in my past career. Recessions tend to only last a short time so the answer short-term is simply to take any job going. Longer term the answer is to ensure you can never be fired in future is to set up your own business. CEOs rarely fires themselves, and there is the possibility that a new business might make you rich. So that is what I did a few years later.

I don’t come from a family of entrepreneurs but from people who worked in big businesses. But it is easier than ever to start-up from scratch and redundancy pay can give you the initial capital required. Recessions don’t make it harder to start a new business but easier in some ways. As companies lay off full-time staff that gives opportunities for others, and any service or product that saves a company money can be immediately attractive. So redundancy just needs to be faced up to with some energy and initiative.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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