3i (III.L) is one of our more successful and larger investments with an IRR of 24% and a net worth share of 4.4%. Note that the scale on the graph is in Pounds Sterling. They are a UK based private equity manager. Most of the capital they manage now is proprietary capital and so you are investing in the combo of fund manager and fund. I first invested in 3i in 2008 but the position was very small until we started ramping up our investment in 2018 peaking at 5,000 shares in 2022. Since then, I sold off 1,500 shares because I was concerned that the majority of their portfolio was in a single company - Action, a European chain of discount stores. This took our net investment down to zero. A classic mature investment.😀 Obviously in retrospect we would have done better by just sticking with 3i.
Pengana Private Equity (PE1.AX) did well for a while but then went sideways since early 2023. Overall it has achieved an IRR of 19%. With good timing, I reduced my investment dramatically at the start of the sideways period. The money was redeployed in another undervalued PE fund - CD3.AX. Since then I have added some back when it seemed a lot undervalued relative to NAV. It's now at 1.6% of net worth, which isn't that big. Hopefully, it will close more of the undervaluation gap and private equity will again do better.
Aura VF1 is a conventional Australian venture capital fund that preceded Aura VF2. Net worth share is 2.8% and IRR is 15%. Both the ramp up and now down in invested capital is dictated by the fund manager. The fund has one big success story - Shippit - and a mix of smaller successes and failures. Management fees will erode the value gradually if there are no mark ups... So we just need to wait for an exit from Shippit to get our money back. Unfortunately, exits from venture capital are still relatively few and far between.
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