Pollen Street Secured Lending to hold onto cash amid coronavirus crisis
Pollen Street Secured Lending (PSSL) is the latest investment trust to hold back on spending, amid the coronavirus crisis.
The alternative finance-focused fund said a significant majority of its assets are maturing so it will be building up a lot of cash.
It follows a similar move by investment manager Pollen Street Capital (PSC) for the Honeycomb fund it also manages.
“The manager is not proposing to re-invest the cash generated by the portfolio in new investments for the foreseeable future,” a February update from PSC said.
“In the structured portfolio where the company provides finance to non-bank lenders, the manager is working with the borrowers to help them navigate the difficult environment whilst ensuring most of the cash generated by their portfolio is utilised to repay our loan.
“We expect the company to generate significant cash over the coming months as the loans amortise and repay.”
Read more: What does the future hold for the world’s first P2P lending investment trust?
The update showed PSSL posted a net asset value (NAV) return of 0.43 per cent in February.
This was the first update since the fund’s board issued a termination notice to PSC after accusing it of withholding due diligence information for a possible cash offer from Waterfall Asset Management to take over the investment trust.
Waterfall has until 21 April 2020 to decide whether it wishes to make an offer.
The investment trust is currently trading on a discount to NAV of 30.9 per cent.