LIFE offices, friendly societies, and building societies with a value of up to #2500m will all be targeted by Murray Financial Corporation, the new investment vehicle for demutualisation specialist Ken Murray when it is launched next week.
His ambitious plans for a new bank will see MFC raise #10m in a placing with institutions and an offer to shareholders of Murray's Cairngorm investment trusts.
A listing on the Alternative Investment Market, sponsored by specialist brokers Peel Hunt, is planned for the summer. Finance for acquisitions will be raised separately.
Another set of successful results from the Cairngorm Building Societies Investment Trusts, unveiled yesterday, will help institutional sentiment towards MFC.
The trusts, separated into ten identical companies so that each can benefit from any conversion pay-out, increased their net asset value to 139.8p a share. The rise of 33% spectacularly beat the 19.5% rise in the FT Fixed Interest Index, the trusts' benchmark.
But although the trusts have outperformed the benchmark by 82% in the two years since their launch, the share price has not been racing ahead. The price was stuck at 90p yesterday, down 10% from launch and at a massive discount of 35% to asset value.
Murray said a new regular savings scheme, and increasing awareness of the trusts' attractions, would help the share price.
The gain in net asset value was made even though the building societies trusts failed to benefit from a single conversion pay-out during the year.
The total return rose 187% to 39.28p a share, and the dividend increased by 10% to 4.4p.
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