The Fund
An activist fund taking stakes in undervalued companies and taking action to enhance value.

Crystal Amber Fund is an AIM-listed, Guernsey-registered fund. It was listed on AIM on 17th June 2008 with a market value of £ 60 million. It aims to build a concentrated portfolio of predominantly mid-cap UK companies

http://www.crystalamber.com/

ST of IC today



Crystal clear path to gains

It’s taken time, but subject to Ryanair accepting International Consolidated Airlines


(IAG: 564p) indicative cash offer of €2.55 a share for the budget airline’s 29.9 per cent stake in Irish carrier Aer Lingus

(AER: €2.44), then the end is now in sight for this long drawn out bid battle. With the Irish government agreeing to sell its 25 per cent stake in Aer Lingus to IAG last week, and IAG confirming it will not raise the offer any higher, then it’s difficult to see Ryanair’s board turning down the opportunity to bag a €405m windfall from a stake that analysts believe has a book value of only €226m.

It’s also good news for Aim-traded Crystal Amber

(CRS: 153p), the activist investment company I included as one of my 10 Bargain shares for 2015. The company predominantly buys into small- and mid-cap UK equities where it sees opportunities to enhance long-term shareholder value through active engagement with companies. Crystal Amber also identified a great value opportunity in the shares of Aer Lingus well before the company became a takeover target.

It’s proved a smart move as the company’s 2.8 per cent shareholding in the Irish carrier is worth around 30.4p a share to Crystal Amber’s shareholders, the company’s largest investment by quite some way, assuming of course Aer Lingus is taken out at €2.55 a share as now seems likely. To put that figure into some perspective, Crystal Amber had a net asset value of 155.7p at the end of April 2015, a rise of around 5 per cent over the course of the month, including cash of 5.3p a share and a valuation of 27.4p at the time on the Aer Lingus stake. In other words, we can realistically expect a further 3p a share increase in Crystal Amber’s book value per share from its holding in Aer Lingus, to give the company around 36p a share of cash to deploy on new investments.

Importantly, the company has been making some decent progress on new investments, having snapped up just over 2m shares at 375p each in iconic film studio Pinewood

(PINE: 455p) in a share placing at the end of March. That investment is showing a paper profit of 20 per cent already. The £30m raised by Pinewood in that placing is earmarked for the first stage of a three phase project to ultimately double the existing capacity of Pinewood Studios through the addition of a total of 100,000 sq metres of new facilities, comprising stages, workshops and production offices. Completion of the first phase is due in the first quarter next year and will significantly expand Pinewood's capacity to accommodate major feature films, television programmes, commercials and other screen-based productions. It will also enhance Pinewood's position as a leading facility for the global screen-based industries. Crystal Amber also has a 6.6 per cent stake in Scottish media company STV

(STVG: 412p), shares of which we have a buy rating on.

So with Crystal Amber set to get a cash boost, and the company deploying its cash wisely, I feel that the shares are worth buying on a bid-offer spread of 151p to 153p. There is also the prospect of a 5p a share dividend this year. Buy.

Activist investor Crystal Amber bucks trend by ploughing cash into North Sea oil

By Laura Chesters For The Daily Mail

Published: 21:49, 28 June 2015 | Updated: 16:21, 29 June 2015
Crystal Amber has invested heavily in North Sea oil

Fresh from making millions from its stake building in Thorntons and Aer Lingus, activist investor Crystal Amber is ploughing cash into a small North Sea oil explorer.

Crystal Amber has built up a stake of just under 12 per cent in AIM-listed Hurricane Energy and is now its largest shareholder.

Hurricane is exploring in the Shetland Basin and has said test data suggests there is potentially at least 400 million barrels of oil.

It is currently looking for a partner to help fund getting the oil out of the ground.

Crystal Amber bought in at 46p and then sold out last autumn. It then bought in to the company again at 16p a share. Hurricane’s shares are currently 16.75p.

The fund, run by Richard Bernstein, made £7.5million from selling its stake in chocolate company Thorntons when it sold its shares to Italian rival Ferrero Rocher which is taking over the company for around £111.9million.

Crystal Amber also decided to sell its stake in Irish airline Aer Lingus, netting £11million. Aer Lingus is currently being taken over by British Airways owner IAG. The deal is still awaiting full competition approval and still needs to agree a deal with 29.8 peer cent shareholder Ryanair.

IAG has offered €2.55 a share and Crystal Amber bought in at €1.36 and sold at €2.42.

Bernstein said: ‘We decided to sell out of Aer Lingus as there is so little upside left for us and we would be better to invest elsewhere.’

Bernstein believes the potential in exploring in the North Sea, despite other bigger players selling out after the collapse in the oil price.

Bernstein said Hurricane can make money as long as the oil price stays above $40 a barrel. The current price of Brent crude is $63 a barrel.

* Crystal Amber will face the Aim-listed owner of Pinewood Studios this week where it is pushing for change.

CRYSTAL AMBER

08 Sep 2015 07:00:00



Crystal Amber Fund Limited



8 September 2015

Crystal Amber Fund Limited

(the ?Fund? or the ?Company?)

Final Results for the year ended 30 June 2015

The Company announces its final results for the year ended 30 June 2015.

Highlights:
•Net Asset Value (?NAV?) per share up 4.6 per cent in year to 168.26 pence (160.81p per share at 30 June 2014, 152.72p at 31 December 2014)
•Dividend increased tenfold from 0.5p to 5p
•Successful exits from investments in Aer Lingus Group plc and Thorntons plc with realised gains of �8.7 million and �7.5 million respectively
•Total net realised gains of �24.4 million for the year, including realised losses on derivatives
•Share placing to existing and new investors in January 2015 raised �32.3 million before expenses, at no cost to other existing investors
•Successful buy-back programme contributed to an average discount to NAV of 3.7 per cent over the year. Discount at the end of August 2015 was 6.0 per cent.
•New positions acquired in Grainger plc, Coats Group plc, Dart Group plc and Balfour Beatty plc.

William Collins, chairman of Crystal Amber Fund, commented:

?The year saw the profitable exit of two of the Fund?s largest investments, Aer Lingus and Thorntons, which combined realised a profit of �16.2 million. The Fund has already redeployed that capital into promising new opportunities. We continue to engage with our investee companies with the confidence of our proven activist investment process?.

ST of IC today - The bottom line is that the odds favour an outperformance of Crystal Amber's share price over the rest of this year, both in absolute and relative terms, driven by likely investment gains on its portfolio as the catalysts I have outlined come into play. There is also a decent 5p a share divided too. On a bid-offer spread of 157p to 162p, I continue to rate Crystal Amber's shares a buy.

ST of IC - So, having previously included the shares as one of the constituents of my 2015 Bargain Shares portfolio when the price was 149.25p, and last advised holding at 147p when I updated the portfolio (‘How the 2015 Bargain share portfolio fared’, 5 Feb 2016), I now rate them a trading buy on a bid-offer spread of 147p to 148p given the deep discount to net asset value and likelihood of hefty cash returns on some of its holdings. Buy.

Good recovery

Crystal Amber Fund Limited (CRS:LSE) set a new 52-week high during today's trading session when it reached 201.96. Over this period, the share price is up 26.25%.
52-week range