Electra Private Equity charges into new financial year

The FTSE 250 firm said its share price of 3757p on 31 December 2015 reflected a total return of 15% since the start of the period, against a total return of 3% for the Morningstar Private Equity Index and 4% for the FTSE All-Share Index.

Electra's board also pointed to a share price total return of 26% over the calendar year to 31 December.

The company said it had £240m of net liquid resources at the period end, and £58m invested, with commitments to invest £89m in Photobox Group and £45m in Grainger Retirement Solutions.

"This has been an excellent start to the new financial year", said Electra chairwoman Dame Kate Barker.

"Absolute and relative share price performance has been strong, continuing the long-term performance trend and Electra Partners has made further progress in deploying Electra's capital as well as driving value in the portfolio", Barker added.

Alex Fortescue, managing partner of Electra Partners, described the £192m Electra had invested or committed to invest as "making full use of our flexible investment mandate."

"This is already more than in the whole of the last financial year, and we have a strong pipeline of new opportunities in which we expect to be able to deploy further capital", Fortescue added.

Alex Fortescue also pointed to the merger of Electra's holiday park assets with Parkdean Holidays, creating a business with EBITDA of over £100m, as a successful example of its so-called "active ownership" approach.

There were also some board changes made during the quarter, with Roger Yates stepping down as chairman on 5 November 2015 and being succeeded by Dame Kate Barker. Roger Perkin was appointed as senior independent director.

On the same day, Edward Bramson and Ian Brindle were appointed as non-executive directors of the company.

Electra's investment in Photobox Group was completed this month.