Oakley Capital Investments Ltd on Wednesday said that all four of its investment sectors contributed to valuation gains over the year.

As of December 31, net asset value was at £1.21 billion for the investment company, which provides access to private equity investments of funds managed by Oakley Capital Ltd. This is up 3% from the £1.17 billion recorded in 2022.

NAV per share was 684 pence by the year-end, with total NAV return per share, including dividends, of 4%, up 27p since December 2022.

Oakley made investments of £175 million over the year, a decrease from £269 in 2022, while share of proceeds was up over the year to £266 million from £244 million.

£50 million worth of investments was made in new platform deals, including Thomas’s London Day Schools, Liberty Dental Group Ltd and WebCentral.

Oakley spent £66 million on reinvestments in IU Group, Germany’s largest private university group, and said it will benefit ‘from the next phase of the company’s growth, focused on leveraging artificial intelligence and internationalisation’. IU Group made one of the largest contributions to Oakley’s portfolio uplift in 2023, as it expanded enrolments 33% to 125,000 students. Oakley also said that companies valuation gains were seen across across all four of its investment sectors, technology, consumer, education and business services.

The company said that the underlying companies in its portfolio ‘continued to trade well in an uncertain macroeconomic environment’. Oakley attributes this to its strategy of investing in ‘asset-light business models’ which promise ‘predictable, recurring cash flows’.

Following the end of 2023, the company revealed ongoing platform deals, with up to £100 million worth of investments in Alerce and Steer Automotive Group. In October, Oakley agreed to acquire Alerce, a Spanish provider of transport and logistics software, for around £9 million. Last week, the company reached a conditional agreement to acquire Steer Automotive Group, a British business-to-business automotive services platform, for £90 million. Both transactions are expected to complete within the first six months of 2024.

As of December 31, Oakley’s total liquidity was £382 million at December 31, up from £210 million a year prior. Outstanding commitments to the Oakley Funds were £1.02 billion, which the company said will be deployed into new investments over the next five years.

Oakley said it will continue its long-term commitment to share buybacks ‘when appropriate’, and plans to release its full-year results for 2023 on March 14.

Shares in Oakley were down 0.2%% at 481.00 pence each in London on Wednesday afternoon

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