30 September, 2022

LIVERMORE INVESTMENTS GROUP LIMITED

UNAUDITED INTERIM RESULTS FOR SIX MONTHS ENDED 30 JUNE 2022

Livermore Investments Group Limited (the "Company" or "Livermore") today announces its unaudited interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2022. These results will be made available on the Company's website today.

For further investor information please go to www.livermore-inv.com.

Enquiries:

Livermore Investments Group Limited                                                         +41 43 344 3200

Gaurav Suri

Strand Hanson Limited (Financial and Nominated Adviser)                       +44 (0)20 7409 3494

Richard Johnson / Ritchie Balmer

Arden Partners plc (Broker)                                                                           +44 (0)20 7614 5900

Chairman's and Chief Executive's Review

Introduction

We are pleased to announce the interim financial results for Livermore Investments Group Limited (the "Company" or "Livermore") for the six months ended 30 June 2022. References to the Company hereinafter also include its consolidated subsidiaries (note 8). 

The economic environment of 2022 can be characterized as a period of indigestion from the monetary and fiscal policy largesse in the previous years. Inflation has risen to multi-decade highs. The inflation situation has been further complicated by the energy cost shock emanating from sanctions applied to Russia on its war in Ukraine. Developed economy central banks are therefore being forced to apply the economic breaks and increase interest rates in a bid to contain inflation. Financial markets have tumbled with both fixed income and equity markets recording significant losses in 2022. The US Dollar has rallied against most developed world currencies and is at multi-year highs as the US Federal Reserve leads the monetary policy tightening race.

While management had expected US Federal Reserve to increase rates in the US, Russia's aggression in Ukraine and the significant resulting sanctions portended a potentially ominous path for economic growth. With government bonds offering extremely low to negative yields at the start of the year, rate increases implied negative returns on government bonds and fixed rate instruments in the near future. At the same time, equity markets face a decline in lofty price/earnings multiples while earnings remain under margin pressure. Management therefore decided to reduce risk and rapidly and successfully converted its two open warehouses into new issue CLOs at amongst the lowest financing costs in 2022. As of 30^th June 2022, management had significantly de-risked its portfolio and had no open warehouse positions. Further, management increased cash and short term investments to USD 37.3m allowing the Company to benefit from opportunistic trading and price dislocations. The Company started the year with USD 45.1m cash on its balance sheet received about USD 13.6m from its CLO and warehouse portfolio, divested about USD 7.6m in investments and returned USD 24.0m to shareholders via dividends during the period.

During the period, US loans held up relatively well as their floating rate component guards against rising rates. Further, there are only a few maturities in the near term as most borrowers took advantage of strong markets in 2021 and extended their loan maturities. On the other hand, these borrowers will be expected to pay more interest costs in the future and may face earnings reductions and liquidity issues in 2023 and management is focused on such situations as they arise. CLO equity valuations have declined during the period, especially for positions with reinvestment periods ending in near-term as CLO managers lose some flexibility to manage the portfolios in these positions.

During the first half of 2022, the Company recorded a net loss of USD 21.6m (30 June 2021: gain of USD 15.5m) as cashflow from the Company's CLO and warehouse portfolio was offset by valuation declines of USD 32.7m. The Company distributed an interim dividend of USD 24.0m during the period.

The NAV of the Company stood at USD 0.79 per share as 30 June 2022 after returning USD 24.0m to shareholders through dividend distributions (30 Jun 2021: NAV per share USD 1.00). The losses relate largely to mark-to-market declines of its CLO portfolio offset by net carry from CLO positions and warehouses. During the first half of 2022, the CLO and warehousing portfolio generated USD 13.6m in cash and USD 32.7m in net valuation declines. Management continues to actively manage the financial portfolio and remains in frequent contact with CLO managers with a view to optimizing exposure to US credit markets.

Financial Review

The NAV of the Company as at 30 June 2022 was USD 130.0m (30 June 2021: USD 164.4m). The loss after tax for the first half of 2022 was USD 21.7m, which represents loss per share of USD 0.13. The loss relates largely to the period end valuations of the CLO portfolio and exposure to leveraged loans.

Livermore's Strategy

The Company's primary investment objective is to generate high current income and regular cash flows. The financial portfolio is constructed around fixed income instruments such as Collateralized Loan Obligations ("CLOs") and other securities or instruments with exposure primarily to senior secured and usually broadly syndicated US loans.  The Company has a long-term oriented investment philosophy and invests primarily with a buy-and-hold mentality, though from time to time the Company will sell investments to realize gains or for risk management purposes.

Strong emphasis is given to maintaining sufficient liquidity and low leverage at the overall portfolio level and to re-invest in existing and new investments along the economic cycle. 

Dividend & Buyback

On 5 January 2022, the Board announced an interim dividend of USD 24.0m (USD 0.145 per share) to members on the register on 14 January 2022. The dividend was paid on 7 February 2022.

The Board of Directors will decide on the Company's dividend policy for 2022 based on profitability, liquidity requirements, portfolio performance, market conditions, and the share price of the Company relative to its NAV.

29 September 2022

Review of Activities

Economic & Investment Environment

After years of low inflation, the powerful global monetary and fiscal policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have finally reignited fears of persistently high inflation. Economic sanctions on Russia, as it wages a war in Ukraine, have driven energy costs higher - adding further fuel to the inflation fire. Already in November 2021, the US Federal Reserve recognized that inflation was no longer a transitory phenomenon and was running too hot, yet it surprisingly kept interest rates unchanged and continued its bond buying programme until March 2022. The result - a 9.1% increase in US Consumer Price Index (CPI), a 9.4% increase in the UK CPI, and an 8.6% increase in euro area inflation rate. Central bankers have once again found themselves behind the curve on inflation, and the cost of catching up and ensuring inflation does not become entrenched may well be significant economic pain and unemployment.

The global economy grew much more slowly since the beginning of 2022. Although unemployment continued to decline in many countries, and in most advanced economies is now back around pre-pandemic lows, high level of inflation and uncertainty from the war in Ukraine had a curbing effect, weighing on purchasing power and reducing demand.

In the US, GDP fell in the first quarter by 1.5% primarily reflecting weak growth in exports due to another pandemic wave and supply chain issues. Unemployment at 3.6% in June is back near its pre-pandemic lows in 2019. Inflation continued to increase in the US reaching a 40-year high of 9.1% increase in June Consumer Price Index. The elevated level of inflation is partly attributable to higher energy and food prices, due to the war in Ukraine. However, core inflation also rose further across the board and stood at 5.9% in June. The US Federal Reserve, in a bid to contain inflation, has vowed to aggressively raise rates and increased its target range for the federal funds rate in March by 25 basis points, 50 basis points in May and by 75 basis points in June, to 1.5 - 1.75%. Further, the Federal Reserve started reducing its balance sheet and signalled additional interest rate hikes to curb inflation.

In the euro area, GDP expanded by 0.7% and 0.8% in the first and second quarter of 2022 respectively. Employment figures in the euro area increased further with unemployment at 6.8% in January and in April, which was lower than its pre-pandemic level. While GDP grew in most member states, it declined in Germany as a result of tightened pandemic containment measures. Manufacturing also recorded slight growth, despite having been burdened for some time by the global shortage of intermediate products. Exports continued to recover and inventory levels increased substantially. However, the war in Ukraine is likely to have a lasting impact on future economic development. Consumer sentiment has deteriorated considerably since the war began, particularly also as higher energy and food prices are weighing on households' real incomes. Furthermore, the war has led to additional supply bottlenecks in manufacturing. Consumer price inflation in the euro area advanced further in recent months and stood at 8.6% in May driven by high energy and food prices which increased substantially with the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Although the European Central Bank left its key interest rates unchanged in March, it announced its decision to wind down the net purchases under its asset purchase programme (APP) faster than planned. In addition, In June, the European Central Bank decided to end net asset purchases under its asset purchase programme (APP) as of 1 July.

Financial market sentiment declined and volatility increased considerably since the beginning of 2022. Expectations of a faster normalisation of monetary policy in the advanced economies, the war in Ukraine and China's continued zero-COVID policy weighted heavily on fixed income and equity markets. As of 30 June 2022, the SPX 500 Index had declined by 21%, the NASDAQ Composite by 30.3%, and the EuroStoxx 50 Index by 20.2%. Yields on ten-year government bonds in advanced economies rose significantly at the turn of the year, as market participants expected a stronger monetary policy response to rising inflation. The US 10 year bond yield increased from 1.51% to 3.01% during the first half of the year while the German 10 year bond yield increased from 0% to 1.33% resulting in significant price declines. High-yield bonds and investment grade bonds declined by 14% during the period.

The US dollar appreciated on a trade-weighted basis while the euro fell to a five-year low against the dollar. The yen and pound sterling weakened in trade-weighted terms, with the yen dropping to a twenty-year low against the US dollar.

Commodity prices were affected by the war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed. In March, the price of Brent crude was at times almost USD 130 per barrel; and at the end of quarter 2022, the price of Brent crude hovered around USD 110 per barrel, thus remaining considerably higher than at the beginning of the year

US Leveraged Loan market performed relatively better losing 4.45% in the first half of 2022 as the floating rate component protected investors against rising rates. At the same time, these borrowers face higher interest costs due to rising rates increasing the probability of future stress and default. Countering this headwind is the fact that near-term maturities remain low as most borrowers took advantage of strong demand in 2021 and pushed out their loan maturities. Nonetheless, while default rates remain low (0.28% in June on a trailing twelve-month basis), we expect default rates to increase in 2023 for certain borrowers with potential liquidity needs in the near future and management is intently focused on such exposures.

The CLO market continued to grow in the first half of 2022, albeit at a much slower pace that in 2021, despite all-in debt spreads widening from SOFR+175bps to SOFR+270bps as already open loan warehouses rushed to securitize financing as well as opportunistic investors seeking to take advantage of loans at low prices. As anticipated, CLO refinancing and reset activities were minimal as most transactions were done in 2021 and the current debt costs are not accretive. With most loans trading at discounts to par, most CLO managers have been able to increase principal par in CLOs, which should help in offsetting some future losses from defaults and restructurings. We expect long reinvestment period CLOs to outperform CLOs with reinvestment periods ending in the near-term as CLO managers lose some flexibility in trading once reinvestment periods are over. The mark-to-market valuations of CLO equity already demonstrates this expected outperformance as prices for short reinvestment end period CLO transactions have declined much more sharply in 2022.

Sources: Swiss National Bank (SNB), European Central Bank (ECB), US Federal Reserve, Bloomberg, JP Morgan, S&P Capital IQ

Financial Portfolio and trading activity    

The Company manages a financial portfolio valued at USD 116.2m as at 30 June 2022, which is invested mainly in fixed income and credit related securities.

The following is a table summarizing the financial portfolio as at 30 June 2022

Senior Secured Loans and CLOs

In the first half of 2022, the US senior secured loan market (leveraged loan market) was not immune to the decline in risk assets despite its floating rate component. Still, it outperformed on a relative basis losing 4.45% as measured by the CS Leveraged Loan Index as compared to the high-yield and investment grade bonds losing about 14%. New issue loan market slowed considerably as SOFR-LIBOR transition issues persisted in the initial weeks and thereafter credit spreads widened. Institutional loan issuance finished the first half of 2022 at USD 171.8 billion, compared to USD 330.7 billion for the first half of 2021.

While defaults stayed at very low levels (par-weighted default rate of 0.28% as of June 2022 compared to 1.25% a year ago), defaults in the near to mid term are expected to increase as borrowing costs shift higher due to rising LIBOR/SOFR and margin pressures increase. At the same time, near-term maturities are low and should help in capping the default risk.

Despite debt spreads rising from SOFR+175bps to as wide as SOFR+270bps, new issue CLO market continued to grow supported by existing warehouse investors desire to securitize into long-term financing and opportunistic investors taking advantage of low loan prices. USD 71 billion of new issue CLO transactions were created along with USD 5 billion of refinancing and USD 20 billion of reset activity (extension of reinvestment period and maturity of existing CLOs). This compares to over USD 80 billion of new issue transactions in addition to USD 67 billion of refinancing and USD 70 billion of reset activity.

Management had two warehouses open coming into the year, which it successfully and rapidly converted to new issue CLOs at amongst the lowest cost of debt in 2022. 

During the first half of 2022, the CLO and warehouse portfolio generated USD 13.6m in cash distributions which were offset by mark-to-market valuation declines of USD 32.7m.

Given the challenging and uncertain macroeconomic backdrop, in the first half of the year the Company aggressively de-risked and its increased cash and short-terms holdings. As of end of June 2022, the Company had USD 37.3m in cash and short-term holdings compared to USD 21.1m at the start of the year (after payout of USD 24.0m dividend). Management expects to opportunistically trade when prices are dislocated while maintaining sufficient liquidity and a no-debt position.

The Company's CLO portfolio is divided into the following geographical areas:

Fund Investments (previously described as Private Equities)

The fund investments held by the Company are incorporated in the form of Managed Funds (mostly closed end funds) mainly in emerging economies. The investments of these funds into their portfolio companies were mostly done in 2008 and 2009. Overall, the Company expects that exits of portfolio companies should materialize by 2022.

The following summarizes the book value of the fund Investments as at 30 June 2022:

Cole Capital:  Cole Capital is a fund that trades in digital assets such as Bitcoin and it is advised by Frequant. The advisor has developed automated trading algorithms that have outperformed the underlying digital assets performance by consistently avoiding large drawdowns. The fund declined by 8.9% return in the first half of 2022, although the investment is still up 38.5% since the Company invested in the fund in March 2021.

Fetcherr Ltd:  Fetcherr is the Israeli start-up that has developed a proprietary AI-powered goal based enterprise pricing and workflow optimization system. Founded in 2019 by experts in deep learning, Algo-trading, e-commerce, and digitization of legacy architecture, Fetcherr aims to disrupt traditional rule-based (legacy) revenue systems through reinforcement learning methodologies, beginning with the airline industry. The Company invested USD 2m in 2021.

Phytech:  Phytech is an agriculture-technology company in Israel providing end-to-end solutions for achieving higher yields on crops and trees. In September 2020, Phytech raised USD 25m at a pre-money valuation of USD 105m. As part of the capital raise, the manager of the investment reduced its holding in Phytech and distributed USD 471k (versus our investment of USD 394k) in cash. Following these transactions, Livermore continues to hold 12.2% in Phytech Global Advisors Ltd, which in turns now holds 11.95% on a fully diluted basis in Phytech Ltd.

Say2eat Inc:  Say2eat is a company that has proved they can disrupt the existing food delivery (3^rd party) marketplace model, with a first party, direct delivery model that is commission free. The company has shown rapid growth and is now active in over 20 US states from the east coast all the way to Hawaii working with 200 restaurants. The Company invested USD 0.750m in 2020.

 The following table reconciles the review of activities to the Group's financial assets as at 30 June 2022.  

Events after the reporting date

Details of material events after the reporting date are disclosed in note 24 of these interim condensed consolidated financial statements.   

Litigation

Information is provided in note 22 to the interim condensed consolidated financial statements.

Going Concern

The Directors have reviewed the current and projected financial position of the Company, making reasonable assumptions about cash and short-term holdings, interest and distribution income, future trading performance, valuation projections and debt requirements. On the basis of this review, the Directors have a reasonable expectation that the Company has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. Accordingly, they continue to adopt the going concern basis in preparing the interim condensed consolidated financial statements.

Livermore Investments Group Limited

Condensed Consolidated Statement of Financial Position

as at 30 June 2022

Livermore Investments Group Limited

Condensed Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income

for the six months ended 30 June 2022

The total comprehensive (loss) / income for the period / year is wholly attributable to the owners of the Company.

Livermore Investments Group Limited

Condensed Consolidated Statement of Changes in Equity

for the period ended 30 June 2022

Livermore Investments Group Limited

Condensed Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows

for the period ended 30 June 2022