Admission to AIM of musicMagpie plc

22 APRIL 2021

NORTHERN VENTURE TRUST PLC 

Admission to AIM of musicMagpie plc

The board of Northern Venture Trust PLC (the “Company”) is pleased to announce that its investee company musicMagpie plc (“musicMagpie”), the holding company of Entertainment Magpie Group Limited, was earlier today admitted to trading on AIM, alongside a placing of new and existing shares. The placing price of these shares was £1.93 per share, valuing musicMagpie at a market capitalisation of £208 million.

The Company sold 4,444,243 shares as part of the placing and realised cash proceeds of £8.3 million (net of transaction costs). As part of this transaction, the Company will also receive payment for its outstanding loan stock of £1.1 million.

Following completion of the placing, the Company now holds 4,444,243 shares in musicMagpie. Based upon the placing price of £1.93 per share, this holding is valued at £8.6 million. The board has supported the management team of musicMagpie through its growth strategy since 2015 and is pleased to retain this equity stake, representing 4.1% of the total outstanding share capital. Taken together with the realised proceeds described above and the total investment income received to date of £0.6 million, a return of 11.6 times has been achieved on the Company’s total original investment amount.

The realisation of capital proceeds outlined above, combined with the uplift in the value of the musicMagpie shares held by the Company, represents an uplift in valuation of £6.4 million, compared to the value included in the Company's unaudited Net Asset Value ("NAV") per share at 31 December 2020 (published on 25 February 2021). This is an increase of 4.0 pence per share over the unaudited NAV per share at 31 December 2020 of 72.9 pence. The Company emphasises that this increase in unaudited NAV per share is in isolation from any other changes in the Company's balance sheet, including valuation and other transaction movements in the Company's investment portfolio that may also have affected the NAV per share since 31 December 2020.

Enquiries:

Simon John/James Bryce, NVM Private Equity LLP - 0191 244 6000
Website: www.nvm.co.uk

Martin Glanfield, Chief Financial Officer Mercia Asset Management PLC - 0330 223 1430
Website: www.mercia.co.uk

Neither the contents of the NVM Private Equity LLP or the Mercia Asset Management PLC website, nor the contents of any website accessible from hyperlinks on the NVM Private Equity LLP or Mercia Asset Management PLC website (or any other website), is incorporated into, or forms part of, this announcement.