Lansdowne Partners Ups Position in London-based IP Group Plc (IPO)

Lansdowne Partners, managed by Alex Snow, has raised its stake in the London-listed company, IP Group Plc (LON:IPO) to 72.48 million shares, equal to 15.26% of the company’s voting rights, from 64.34 million shares held previously. According to the filing, the stake has been raised due to IP Group’s acquisition of Fusion IP Plc.

Holding company, IP Group Plc (LON:IPO) completed the acquisition of Fusion IP plc at the end of last week. Under the terms of the deal, disclosed in an earlier press release, the shareholders of the acquired company received 0.446 shares of IP Group, for each share of Fusion IP held. The total monetary value of the deal, amounts to roughly $144.9 million.  The portfolio of IP Group Plc (LON:IPO) is represented by over 70 companies, such as Oxford Nanpopore Technologies, Xeros, Revolymer, Activiomics, etc.

The company reported its 2013 results at the beginning of the month. According to the statement, IP Group Plc (LON:IPO) had net assets of around $557 million at the end of last year, up from $435 million in 2012. The adjusted profit before tax of the company amounted to $128.3 million, which represents a significant increase from $77.2 million posted for 2012.

In February, the shareholders of IP Group approved a capital raising plan, under the terms of which, the company plans to issue over 60.6 million Capital Raising Shares, which represent gross proceeds of approximately $165.3 million.

Lansdowne Partners’ has around $18 billion in Assets Under Management. The fund holds an equity portfolio worth $11.54 billion, invested primarily in Services stocks. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) represents the largest holding, worth $1.23 billion, which contains over 21 million shares. Among other major positions are Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), in which the fund owns 2.74 million shares and 974,400 shares respectively.

Disclosure: none

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