3 February 2017

Oakley Capital Investments Limited ("OCL" or the "Company")

Trading Update for the 12 months ended 31 December 2016

·      NAV per share (unaudited) expected to be in the range of £2.33 - £2.35, representing an increase of at least 16% on December 2015 (£2.00)

·      The Company has deployed €48.8m during 2016 in capital calls from the Oakley Funds

·      Successful exits returned £56.9m to the Company¹ 

·      Additional commitment of €75m made to Fund III during the year, bringing the total to €325m

·      Maiden dividend declared of 4.5 pence, which was paid on 30 January 2017

·      Treasury shares of 15m sold raising £23.3m in January 2017

Oakley Capital Investments Limited (AIM: OCL, "the Company"), the AIM-listed company established to provide investors with access to the investment strategy being pursued by the Oakley Funds, today announces its trading update for the 12 months ended 31 December 2016.

Through its investments in the Oakley Funds, the Company has an indirect interest in each of Fund I, II and III's portfolio companies, representing 65.5%, 38.1% and 47% respectively.

Oakley Capital Limited ("Oakley Capital"), the Company's Investment Adviser, estimates that the Company's net asset value, which is subject to the completion of the 31 December 2016 audit of the Funds, and the Company, will be in the range of £442m to £446m, equating to a net asset value ("NAV") per share of £2.33 to £2.35 (31 December 2015: £2.00). The Company's net asset value is made up of cash, the investment in the Funds, co-investments, loans provided to a number of the portfolio companies and short-term bridging finance for the Funds. Of the uplift in NAV per share, approximately 18p is attributable to the significant weakening of Sterling between 31 December 2015 and 31 December 2016.

Peter Dubens, Director, commented:

"There have been good levels of investment and divestment activity in the Oakley Funds' underlying portfolio companies. The overall Funds' portfolio continues to perform strongly, reflected in the 18% growth in the fair value of their investment portfolios (measured on a like-for-like basis). We are seeing an interesting pipeline of new investment opportunities for Fund III, as demonstrated by the recent acquisition of European real estate websites".

Key Highlights

The Oakley Funds have been active over the past 12 months, in particular:

·      Fund III agreed to acquire a portfolio of European real estate websites including Casa.it in Italy and atHome.lu in Luxembourg in December 2016. Completion of the transaction occurred on 31 January 2017. The Company's contribution to the equity investment, through its interest in Fund III, is €42.2m. The transaction builds on Oakley's experience in the online consumer sector through its previous investments in Facile.it, Parship Elite Group and Verivox.de.

·      The Company has benefited through its investment in Fund II from a partial sale of Parship Elite Group, the leading online dating service in the German-speaking world, to ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE, one of the largest independent media corporations in Europe. In October 2016, sale proceeds of €43.3m were distributed to the Company, in addition to the repayment of a bridging loan that OCL had provided of €6.2m.  The Fund has generated a gross money multiple and IRR of 3.7x and 140% respectively from this investment, including from its retained stake.

·      An agreement has been signed for a full exit of Fund II's minority interest in Host Europe Group ("HEG"), following its sale of intergenia Holdings GmbH to HEG in January 2015. Cinven, the majority shareholder, has reached an agreement to sell HEG, the largest privately owned hosting provider in Europe, to GoDaddy Inc. This transaction is expected to generate cash proceeds to the Company of approximately €14.4m and generate a gross money multiple and IRR of 2.1x and 40% respectively for the Fund.

·      Fund II also made follow on investments in Educas, Daisy, North Sails and Verivox in 2016, totalling €81.2m.  The Fund called capital of €39.0m from OCL.

·      Time Out Group plc ("Time Out") successfully listed on the London Stock Exchange on 14 June 2016. Time Out raised £90m, which after fees and debt repayment generated net proceeds of £59m. These funds will be used to accelerate the Time Out's growth plans, to invest in digital and ecommerce opportunities as well as the roll-out of the Time Out Market concept. Following the listing the Company has a direct interest in Time Out representing 24.0% of its issued share capital, and an indirect interest through Fund I of an additional 22.7%.  

·      Fund I sold the remaining Broadstone Corporate Pensions division to Livingbridge in May 2016. Total proceeds of €6.3m were distributed to the Company, as well as the proceeds from the repayment of an outstanding loan amounting to £11.2m, including accrued interest.

·      With respect to Fund III, the Company has made, in line with its investing policy, a further commitment of €75m, taking the Company's total commitments to Fund III to €325m.

Co-investments

The Company makes co-investments and loans alongside the Oakley Funds to provide a return on its un-invested cash. At the year end the Company had £128.7m of loan and co-investment assets (31 December 2015: £128.0m). These co-investments generated £11.3m of interest income during the year.

Treasury Shares Placing

Subsequently to the year end, the Company sold 15m treasury shares at a price of £1.57 per share compared to an average acquisition price of £1.46 per share. All of the remaining 2.1m shares held in treasury have since been cancelled. The total number of shares in issue is therefore 204,804,036. The dilution impact of this on the NAV per share is approximately 2.5%, or 5.9 pence (2015 dilution: 1.4%, 2.9 pence). The Board will maintain its policy of share buy backs as part of discount control management and will not in future sell stock from treasury nor issue new shares at material discounts to NAV.

Capital Markets Day

The company will host a Capital Markets Day for institutional investors and analysts on 15 May 2017. A series of presentations will be given by the senior management team of the Company's Investment Adviser, Oakley Capital, and by CEOs of several of the Fund's portfolio companies. No new material information will be disclosed.

This announcement contains inside information.

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For further information please contact:

Oakley Capital Investments Limited

+44 20 7766 6900

Peter Dubens, Director

FTI Consulting LLP

+44 20 3727 1000

Edward Bridges / Stephanie Ellis

Liberum Capital Limited (Nominated Adviser & Broker)

+44 20 3100 2000

Steve Pearce / Steven Tredget / Jill Li

About Oakley Capital Investments Limited ("OCL")

Oakley Capital Investments Limited is a Bermudan company listed on AIM. OCL seeks to provide investors with long term capital appreciation through its investments in Oakley Capital Private Equity L.P., Oakley Capital Private Equity II, Oakley Capital Private Equity III (together the "Oakley Funds") and through co-investment opportunities.

¹ This includes expected proceeds of £12.3m (€14.4m) on disposal of HEG