Thanks to Nils Österström on Facebook for finding this story:
There’s a publicly traded British investment fund called Woodford Patient Capital Trust (UK Stock symbol WPTC) which, according to an article on the Citywire website, has invested a portion of its capital in Industrial Heat, LLC. The company explains its objective with the the fund:
“To achieve long-term capital growth through investing in a portfolio consisting predominantly of UK companies, both quoted and unquoted. The Company will aim to deliver a return in excess of 10% per annum over the longer term. (Note: this is a target only and not a profit forecast and there can be no assurance that it will be met.)”
The Citywire article mentions that WPTC invests mainly in early startups, and according to this article, it has taken a position in Industrial Heat:
WPCT’s unquoted investments look pretty interesting. Most are biotech companies but one that caught my eye was Industrial Heat, a company that is trying to make money from low energy nuclear reactions (aka cold fusion). If it can pull this off it should be worth a fortune, but I’m guessing there will be plenty of sceptics out there.
Industrial Heat is one of WPCT’s unquoted US investments. The US venture capital market has been really strong for a while now but UK investors haven’t really been able to access a listed vehicle to play this theme.
Since most individual investors are not able to buy shares in Industrial Heat, if you bought shares in WPTC, you would own a little bit of Industrial heat — along with shares in all other companies that WPTC invests in. I have not been able to determine how much of Industrial heat is owned, but it’s not a large percentage of the fund — see here for the top 10 holdings.
