Pollen Street was created via the merger of the Honeycomb trust with its investment management firm Pollen Street in October 2022.
Honeycomb trust combines with Pollen Street
The trust will hold a general meeting on 11 October seeking shareholder approval to turn Pollen Street into a commercial company, effective from Q1 2024.
Shareholders would see their shares in the trust exchanged for the same number of shares in the holding company, meaning they would receive premium segment shares in the commercial company in place of their premium segment shares in the investment trust.
As part of the arrangement, Pollen Street would also cancel its existing share premium reserve, with the arising sum to be credited to its distributable reserves, it said in a regulatory filing yesterday (18 September).
As the asset manager is due to play a “larger role in dictating Pollen Street’s investment activities”, the business will no longer be “as readily compatible with the definition of an investment company”, according to the firm, which is the main reason that has driven the change.
“The purpose of the cancellation is to increase Pollen Street’s distributable reserves in order that it may carry out the subsequent reorganisation,” it added.
“The scheme, the change of listing and the subsequent reorganisation…will result in a revised corporate structure that more accurately reflects the day-to-day operations of the group.
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In its interim accounts for the first half of 2023, the trust reported strong cash generation from its net investment assets, with £15.4m in income – up from £13.7m in the first half of 2022 – and a return on net investment assets of 9.1%.
The asset management arm also reported strong performance, with its private credit and private equity strategies leading AUM growth, which totalled £4.2bn at the end of June 2023.
Lindsey McMurray, CEO of Pollen Street, said: “I am pleased with the performance in the first half of the year, driven by the unique combination of strong growth from our asset management business and robust performance from the investment company.
“Across our private equity and private credit strategies, we maintain our track record of deployment and performance and we are encouraged to see proforma AUM grow to £4.2bn. We have demonstrated clear progress in delivering our strategy and our business has shown resilience in the changing macro environment. I am confident we will see further progress as we head into the second half of the year and as we seek to take advantage of our organic growth opportunities.”
