CHRYSALIS VCT PLC (CYS)

CHRYSALIS VCT PLC (CYS)

Blog posts

Chrysalis – Vote NO at 26 November General Meeting

Shareholders are excluded from this GM and there is no pre-meeting webinar to discuss these highly contentious proposals to wind up the VCT and distribute any monies raised (less administration fees, including payments to the failing fund manager and some directors). Several members of the ShareSoc VCT Investor Group (including Tim Grattan, Mark Lauber, Roger Lawson and myself) met on 10 Nov to discuss Chrysalis' plans. Our conclusion was that shareholders should vote against these proposals for the following reasons: Chrysalis is ...

Epidemic Over? Unable to Trade and Chrysalis VCT Wind-Up

Pandemic News The news that the Pfizer vaccine for Covid-19 appears to work (at least 90% of the time) and has no negative side effects gave stock markets a good dose of euphoria yesterday (9th November). It suggests that we might be able to return to a normal life in future, but exactly when is far from clear. Actually producing and distributing the vaccine is going to be a mammoth task and it is very clear that it will only be given ...

Horizon Discovery AGM and Chrysalis VCT

Yesterday I attended the Annual General Meeting of Horizon Discovery Group (HZD) in Cambridge. This is a new holding for me, and I don’t often buy shares in companies that are not reporting profits, but I thought it was worth going along to learn some more about the business. The company’s primary focus is on cell manipulation tools (gene editing, gene modulation) which they sell to drug development companies et al. I am not sure I have great understanding of the ...

Directors’ Share Purchases at Chrysalis VCT

Would you be happy if you saw that the directors of a listed company had apparently purchased shares at an advantageous price? In other words had purchased shares in the market  at a price that was not available to anyone else? On Thursday the 17th April, I chose to purchase 3,000 shares in Chrysalis VCT. This followed an announcement by the company on the 14th April that the company had achieved two successful exits from portfolio companies which had increased the company's ...

AGM Reports

Chrysalis VCT (CYS) AGM 2018

Last week (27/2/2018) I attended the Annual General Meeting of Chrysalis VCT Plc (CYS) in the City of London. Here’s a brief report on the event. There were about half a dozen ordinary shareholders present, the three directors and fund management representatives despite the difficult travel conditions. Chrysalis is of course a venture capital trust but somewhat different to many VCTs. It has a good performance record in recent years but does not undertake share buy-backs. As a result the shares trade ...

Chrysalis VCT (CYS) AGM Report 2014

Meeting attended by the Board, several advisers, and three shareholders. Background: this is a self-managed VCT which did an enhanced buyback a year ago covering 26% of the current shares. It has historically traded at a substantial discount to NAV, usually exceeding 40%. Dividend policy is currently 5p per annum, the market price is 48/53. Apart from the EBB, it has not issued shares for a number of years and the market in CYS shares suffers from illiquidity. The Board have significant ...

Chrysalis VCT (CYS) AGM Report 2013 – “Raiding the Till”

The Chrysalis VCT Annual General Meeting (AGM) was held this morning in London in Downing’s office to the rear of Buckingham Palace. There were in fact two meetings – the AGM itself at 10.00 am and a General Meeting to approve the SRRP at 10.30 - see below for explanation of that. Chrysalis has been one of the most successful VCTs in recent years in terms of asset performance after an initial shaky start. They then fired the fund manager and subsequently ...

Chrysalis VCT (CYS) AGM Report 2012

Chrysalis is a Venture Capital Trust which had a somewhat disappointing start in life back in the year 2000. As a result in 2004 the fund manager was fired, the company name was changed to Chrysalis and it became a “self managed” trust, i.e. they directly employ a fund manager rather than contracting it out to a third party as most investment trusts (and VCTs) do. Since that initial debacle the Net Asset Value has been recovering – according to Allenbridge ...

Corporate Remuneration Reports

Chrysalis VCT Remuneration Report

Chrysalis VCT - a good story - NEDs own lots of shares My wife owns shares in Chrysalis and just received the annual report, which I read. Chrysalis (market cap £18m, discount to net assets of 25%), pays an excellent dividend of 8p a share (2017) on the current share price of 60p. 10 year return is 137% which vastly exceeded the index - Morningstar VCT Generalist Post-Qualifying of 23.46%. It is good to see the NEDs themselves own lots of shares Martin Knight, ...