NZVIF takes ikeGPS stake inhouse after No 8 Ventures opts to distribute shares

The New Zealand Venture Investment Fund, the Crown-funded start-up investor, has taken its 7.1 percent stake in ikeGPS [NZX: IKE] inhouse, after Number 8 Ventures opted to distribute the shares at the end of the remote measurement tool maker's lock-up period.

The fund owns 3.5 million of the 50.1 million ikeGPS shares on issue, worth about $2.28 million at today's price of 65 cents per share. That stake had previously been held via No 8 Ventures Nominees and was distributed to the fund on June 25, according to a substantial shareholder notice filed to the NZX today. NZVIF still has a couple of investments managed by No 8.

"In relationship with ikeGPS, we don't have an ongoing relationship with No 8 Ventures," NZVIF chief executive Franceska Banga told BusinessDesk. "We've always had an underlying beneficial interest through the bare trustee, and the management agreement had a clear statement in it that when the company was listed and once it came out of lock-up then the manager would have that ability to distribute the shares in-specie, which is what they've done and which is fine."

About 54 percent of ikeGPS's shares faced trading restrictions after the company floated last year, with directors and management prevented from selling until the 2016 financial year's annual result was released, and other shareholders limited until the 2015 year.

IkeGPS shares listed at $1.10 apiece last year in an initial public offering that raised $25 million, through No 8 Ventures Nominees, which bought into the company at between 40 cents and 54 cents a share between 2006 and 2012, while No 8 Ventures Management converted a loan to equity at a price of 64 cents a share. Other early investors, such as Wellington property developer Rex Nicholls and his wife and former Wellington mayor Kerry Prendergast, paid 28 cents per share as founding shareholders in 2003.

The ikeGPS share price is quoted at 65 cents.

In May, ikeGPS appointed specialist investor relations advisory firm MKR Group to help find US-based strategic investors.

(BusinessDesk)

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