Macroeconomic concerns continue to be top of mind for many. Against this background, there is a timely piece here by ICG plc’s Chief Economist Nick Brooks, who has reviewed ICG’s proprietary database of ~1,700 private companies across 24 countries and 10 sectors. He finds that both European and US private companies continue to report strong EBITDA growth, despite relatively weak headline GDP growth, and that debt sustainability measures have held up well as this earnings growth has helped to offset higher interest rates. A useful validation of the trend that we see in the ICG Enterprise Trust portfolio.
I (Colm) am in the US this week meeting some of our long-standing partners, such as Gridiron Capital. Gridiron was introduced to us through the ICG network, and our primary commitments to its funds as well as generating strong returns themselves have generated a number of direct co-investment opportunities such as Vistage and AML RightSource. There is a bit more on our relationship with Gridiron available here. It is great to meet managers on the ground, discussing what they are seeing in their portfolios and where they are finding opportunities.
In a similar vein, ICG is hosting a seminar tomorrow, 5th March at 5pm UK time with Ricardo Lombardi, global head of ICG Strategic Equity. Strategic Equity is a key component of ICG Enterprise Trust’s secondary exposure – we have committed to funds III, IV and V, which are among our largest fund exposures. It should be an interesting insight into how Ricardo sees the opportunity for this asset class. The seminar is online, you can sign up here, and for those unable to join live, there will be a recording available.
With best wishes for the upcoming month,
Oliver and Colm
P.S. We also wanted to share this article: ICG Enterprise Trust is featured in the AIC’s latest research titled “The 50 investment trusts that would have made you an ISA millionaire”. ICG Enterprise Trust is one of the few investment trusts which would have made investors more than £1 million if they had invested the full annual ISA allowance in its stock, and reinvested dividends, each year since ISAs were introduced in 1999 – a testament to the strength and consistency of returns and the benefits of investing for the long term. This is a performance which has been achieved without reliance on growth in any one sector and with strong underlying portfolio company diversification.
Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.
Unsure of some of these terms? See our Glossary.
Subscribe to our newsletters
Sign up for Regulatory News updates: click here
Authors
Back