Rockwood Strategic PLC on Wednesday declared no dividend but said its net asset value grew over the past year with a positive total return, and proclaimed confidence in its portfolio and investment strategy.

The London-based investor in smaller UK public companies, formerly known as Rockwood Realisation PLC, said its NAV at March 31 was 1,959.6 pence per share, up from 1,613.8p at the same time one year prior.

Shares in Rockwood were down 0.2% at 2,046.00p in London on Thursday afternoon.

NAV total return for the year ended March 31 was positive 21.4%, down from positive 28% during the previous year. By contrast the total return for its benchmark, the FTSE Small Cap, was negative 15.7%.

Pretax profit decreased by 45% to £8.4 million from £15.4 million the year before. Gains on investments more than halved to £9.0 million from £20.0 million, while revenue more than doubled to £1.3 million from £663,000.

‘The portfolio has delivered another year of excellent NAV growth whilst the manager has been actively initiating new investments to seed future returns,’ commented Chair Noel Lamb. ‘Since the period end the discount to [NAV] has been eliminated for the very first time and we have begun to grow the strategy through new share issuance.

‘This differentiated, active strategy is attracting significant attention, generating sector and market leading performance and offering investors a proven approach to delivering returns despite a challenging external environment.’

Rockwood declared no dividend for the year, unchanged from financial 2022. The company intends to retain as much capital as is allowable to maximise the compounding of NAV growth, until it has gained greater scale.

In the medium term, Rockwood said stock-specific risk and return will be the primary determinant of its returns rather than market factors. It expects the current pickup in trade buyer acquisition activity and public-to-private transactions to speed up over the next few years.

Rockwood added that it is confident in its portfolio’s upside potential and ‘our ’engaged’ style’, and that it has ‘exciting strategic investment theses for all [our] holdings’.

‘Our results this year demonstrate that Rockwood shareholders can have a smile on their faces when almost everyone else hasn’t,’ the company remarked.

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