Woodford eyes exit at Oxford Nanopore

Woodford Investment Management, the beleaguered fund manager founded by Neil Woodford, is considering the disposal of its stake in University of Oxford’s genetic sequencing technology developer Oxford Nanopore Technologies, Sky News reported yesterday.
Sky News claimed Woodford would move in coming days to appoint PJT Park Hill, part of investment bank PJT Partners, as an adviser to sell off its stakes in Oxford Nanopore and digital bank Atom Bank.
Sources told the news broadcaster that Oxford Nanopore and Atom Bank, as well as cancer care provider Proton Partners International, were among the portfolio companies in Woodford’s suspended Equity Income Fund, whose corpus has been reduced by refunds to a number of a major investors.
However Neil Woodford is expected to stand firm on Oxford Nanopore’s market rate, despite the liquidity threat hanging over his company. An unnamed source remarked: “Anyone expecting a fire-sale of these holdings should not hold their breath.”
Founded in 2005, Oxford Nanopore has devised a real-time DNA and RNA sequencing technology that provides biological analysis at relatively low cost. It has applications in disease and pathogen surveillance, environmental monitoring, food supply chain inspection and microgravity biology.
In April 2018, Oxford Nanopore was reportedly set to begin clinical trials on the system for the first time, to diagnose bacterial infections at University of Bern’s Institute of Infectious Diseases and conduct genetic testing of Huntington’s disease at health system Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Trust.
Oxford Nanopore has assembled approximately $656m in equity funding so far and was thought to be targeting an IPO listing of its shares earlier this year.
Woodford owned a total of 12.5% in Oxford Nanopore on an undiluted basis through different vehicles, according to a regulatory filing, though it is thought to have since sold back some of its shares.
Drug firm Amgen owns around 3% interest in Oxford Nanopore, while University of Oxford, Stanford University and Oxford Nanopore co-founders Gordon Sanghera, Spike Willcocks and Hagan Bayley own minor stakes.
The spinout raised $140m in an April 2018 round backed by Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC, Australian superannuation fund Hostplus, financial services firm China Construction Bank and unnamed existing backers, before adding a $66m extension from Amgen that October.
Oxford Nanopore had already closed a $126m round in 2016 led by investment fund GT Healthcare that featured Woodford, commercialisation firm IP Group and undisclosed additional investors, after a $107m deal the previous year that also included IP Group.
Other early investors in the company include genomics technology supplier Illumina, which supplied $18m in 2009, along with Odey Asset Management, Invesco Perpetual, Lansdowne Partners and Top Technology Ventures.