Ted Fjällman
Good morning everyone and welcome to the Flerie Q4 report presentation. It's a pleasure that so many of you have called in and also reached out since we both sent out our NAV report and now our full quarterly report.
I'm not going to spend too much time on explaining who we are. I think many of you know who we are, but this slide, of course, shows who we are.
I just want to point out that, of course, there is a disappointment on our side with negative development during the quarter and during last year. I think and hope that during this presentation, together with Cecilia, our CFO, I can show you that we think we have a great opportunity in our portfolio and that we've actually been in an investment phase rather than a selling phase, and that partly explains the negative development during the last year.
In basic terms, quarter four has been about sharpening our focus, really increasing our focus on direct investments through divesting the LP segment, which I'll talk a little bit about, and doing what we're really good at, which is doing these direct investments, but also thinking creatively about financial ways of financing our companies, and we're doing that now for the second time through a merger with one of our portfolio companies, which I also talk about. First, our current net asset value is almost 3.4 billion.
It's 43.6 SEK per share, and our firepower is significant: 17 or 16% of our net asset value in cash. That's 6.97 SEK out of the 43.6.
That is to be invested in the further value of our current portfolio, and one of the examples where we've done that, in fact strengthened our position, is in our biggest holding, Prokarium, and I'll get back to that in a moment. The significant events and value changes have been the following.
I'll talk in detail about the merger with Lipum on the next slide, but most importantly, the divestment of the limited partnership segment requires a little bit of explanation. We have actually benefited greatly from having this LP segment when we started as Flerie.
As we were unknown as an entity. Of course, we were people who had built biotech companies for a long time before we joined Flerie, but as any new company, you have to make a name for yourself.
For us, it was important to gain the networks of these three funds that we had invested in as an LP, and we did, and some of them actually invested in our companies. We've gained benefit from that.
Now we are known, and we are known and are able to invest with people all around the world, very reputable investment companies around the world, and we no longer need this network, and we want to focus, and I really pointed out focus on direct investments. That's why we've divested it, and we divested it at fair value, which I think is very reasonable, better than we could have expected, and it has no effect on the results.
We've done several capital raises very successfully: Prokarium, Frontier, Mendus did a public raise, Xintela as well, and Chromafora did a raise together with an acquisition of a Danish subsidiary of the Montrose Environmental Group. That's very exciting.
I'm happy to talk about that now in the next bullet. You can see that Chromafora is a PFAS specialist, and they actually acquired the Danish PFAS specialist subsidiary of Montrose, as I said, who work on the sort of long-chain PFAS.
Without going into too much detail, this gives Chromafora a great benefit for customers today, and they have the innovative technology to bring in the customers of tomorrow, and that's why Montrose Environmental Group also became a strategic investor. Multiple of our companies have good clinical results: Prokarium, Empros, Xintela and Anacardio, and I'm happy to answer questions about that in the Q&A.
After the quarter, KAHR Bio reported strong Phase 2 data and secured US dollars 22 million in equity funding. That's our Israeli company that's working in the oncology space.
Very glad to see that they are now well funded for quite some time forward. Let's talk a little bit more about the Lipum merger plan.
We had this agreed together in both companies, actually with the boards and with the shareholders. It's good to go now.
There's a process that needs to be done with the Swedish Companies House, or Bolagsverket, but essentially this will all be completed by the end of Q1 2026. It's clear to point out that actually this was a 33% premium to pre-announced trading price.
I think everyone, including the internal investors in Lipum, think that this is a very good move in order to secure the continued financing of SOL-116 into Phase 2. This is a rheumatoid arthritis treatment, and you should know that rheumatoid arthritis is actually the seventh largest sickness in the world in terms of sales.
The sales are of essentially symptom medication that only impact the symptoms, don't actually improve or get rid of the cause of rheumatoid arthritis, while SOL-116 has the potential to be curative. We're very excited to see the effect data coming out of that Phase 2 study, which I think will be transformative.
For me, I see this as a very good investment of Flerie for the future. It's of course a privatization, we will take Lipum private, and that will help us to access specialist capital going forward.
We're actually also able to sell some of our shares in Lipum, which we've done with Toleranzia, which we've done before. Toleranzia is now Bonsai Biotherapeutics, and as we sold some of our Toleranzia shares in order to raise money to help all of our portfolio going forward.
When it comes to financing, we continue to catalyze significant investments in Frontier, Chromafora and Mendus, as you can see here. Multiple times our own invested capital is invested by other investors alongside us.
Typically it's two to three times what we invest overall. I'm very excited that this Q4 our syndicating partners invested over half a billion SEK alongside our 172 million.
Last but not least in my section, I want to point out some of the key portfolio developments: AnaCardio, our heart failure company, they reported strong Phase 2a data. We co-invested there with Novo and with Eir Ventures and others, Swedish investors.
It's incredibly a growing field. We were at JPMorgan Healthcare Conference last week, and this is a field that requires solutions, and AnaCardio has one that could be really groundbreaking.
Prokarium, our largest holding, we raised 6 million pounds in that company from the existing shareholders. That explains the big negative effect on our NAV, because Prokarium is our big holding.
It's over 200 million negative effect due to this transaction. We did that on purpose, because we believe Prokarium is in an exciting space.
Its bladder cancer trial is already having a good readout, but we will get the full bladder cancer trial readout with this financing, and we essentially recapitalized the company, changed the shareholder base. Those who could join, they joined and strengthened their position, and that was certainly the case for Flerie.
Those who could not join, of the internals, they've obviously been diluted. Empros Pharma, clinical study showed side effects can be well managed, we're excited about that.
They really delivered on what they said they would. Xspray, as has had an issue with their manufacturing in Italy.
I've talked a lot about that, but willing to answer any more questions you have. The positive side about Xspray is that the FDA has provided the so-called PDUFA date for nilotinib, which is the second program, and that's also in June 2026.
This means there could be a dual launch of two products during this year. Now I'll hand over to Cecilia for further financial numbers.
Cecilia Stureborg von Schéele
Thank you, Ted. Yes, let's head into the financial section for the quarter, and as Ted just described, it's a quarter where we saw continued progress in several of our portfolio companies, but where a down round and a delayed FDA process significantly affected our NAV.
Our net asset value was 3.4 billion end of Q4. It's down 14% from Q3.
Our NAV per share decreased to 43.60. Now 90% of this decrease relates to only three companies, all of them are in the product development segment.
In the quarter, we also saw a few other changes in valuation, both up and down, and I will come back to these details shortly. The portfolio fair value end of Q4 was 2.6 billion, down from 3.1 billion end of Q3, and this relates, of course, mainly to the negative change in fair value, but also to the divestments, which the most significant one was the LP segment.
As Ted mentioned, we also sold some of our shares in Lipum. Divestment decreased the fair value by 116 million.
Finally, we also made investments in the portfolio in the quarter, another 179 million. With that, let's go to the next slide and look at the segments.
The PD segment had a total value end of Q4 of just over 2 billion. The change in fair value of the segment was negative over 500 million, and the decrease, as we've already talked about, was mainly explained by two things: firstly, the lower valuation in connection with funding rounds for Prokarium and Geneos, which decreased the portfolio value by 275 million together.
We also saw a negative share price development for Xspray, 213 million, following the complete response letter we received in October. Meanwhile, the share price development was positive for the listed company Lipum.
Again, we announced and got approval for the planned merger with Lipum that will close in Q1, and the value increase for the company was 36 million in Q4. In the quarter, we invested 136 million, which the more significant was in Lipum, where we converted our loans to shares, which was a part of the merger plan.
We also invested in Prokarium and Xintela, the major ones, and again divestments, part of our shares in Lipum in this segment. Continuing to the CG segment, where we saw an increase in the portfolio value, up to 581.
We had a positive fair value change in the quarter, which related to Chromafora and the increased valuation from the funding round that closed in December. Chromafora's valuation increased 30 million, but the increase was somewhat offset by a negative share price development in Nanologica that decreased 50 million.
We made investments in the CG segment as well, mainly the participation in the Chromafora round, but also a smaller amount in Frontier. Then a few words on the LP segment.
Just before New Year's, we divested the entire holdings of the investment funds that constituted the limited partnership segment. It generated proceeds of 109 million, which was based on the valuation from our November NAV report.
The valuation of the investment funds are usually based on the quarterly fund reports that we receive from the fund managers, and these are distributed around six to eight weeks after the quarter end. We will make a final settlement with the taker of the LP segment in Q1, when we have received the valuation reports for December.
That wraps up the financial segment, and I hand over to you, Ted.
Ted Fjällman
Thank you, Cecilia. I think I was a little fast on the slides before, those of you who didn't see the slides, I'm happy to share more information about that if you need to.
Regarding concluding remarks, I would just say that we're very happy with the state of our portfolio, the 25 companies that we have. It's well diversified, as it always has been, and now with the LP segment divested, we are really focusing fully on these direct investments in the 25 portfolio companies.
I would say, coming back from JPMorgan in San Francisco last week, that the Americans are speaking about, can it get even better than it already is? That's because the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index has actually gone very well the last half year.
Europe is always at least six months behind the U.S. when it comes to market recovery, and therefore I think we have a lot to look forward to.
Why am I telling you all this? It's because I think Flerie has actually been in a very good investment phase for the last three years.
It has been a good time for us to deploy our capital into companies at good valuations, and we continue to do that now, as we did, for example, in Prokarium. We actually strengthened our position in a very exciting company that could in the future be sold at a good price.
The big question is, when is a good time to sell? We're not there yet.
We have to have some, as we say in Swedish, ice in the stomach, is i magen. I think the market recovery will come, and we are prepared for that.
We have good cash in hand, and we have the ability to support our portfolio companies going forward, and we're focusing very much on strategic discussions with pharma partners. Thank you, and I hope we can answer any questions that you might have.
Operator
Welcome to today's Q&A session. My name is Paula, and I will be today's moderator.
If you have any questions, then please click on the Raise Your Hand icon on the toolbar. I will then activate your microphone when it's your turn to speak.
Thank you very much. Do we have any questions?
Yes, Linus. I will activate your microphone.
Welcome, Linus.
Linus Sigurdson
Thank you very much. I hope you can hear me.
Starting off, it would be interesting to hear more about the write-down in Geneos, and also what the roadmap and what the capitalization is in that company.
Ted Fjällman
Sure. Geneos was the third largest write-down we did during the last quarter.
We essentially have a process of financing ongoing that is not closed, but there is some delay in that. We felt it necessary to make that adjustment now because of that delay.
What is on the positive side there is that if Geneos is able to close that financing, then it will be funded to a good inflection point for the next actual randomized control trial. As Linus, that's really the key for Geneos, is to do that randomized control trial.
We've had a lot of discussions with pharma. That's what they're looking for.
Although Geneos has had really fantastic results that have been published in Nature and have really been well received, the big pharma are really looking for that randomized control trial. I'm happy to answer more questions about that if someone doesn't know exactly what that means.
Linus Sigurdson
Thanks. That's very clear.
Then more broadly on, I completely understand and subscribe to the rationale behind lowering valuations to get more investors on board with the capital raise, like you did in Prokarium. We've seen the NAV come down consistently over a couple of quarters.
Can we have confidence in portfolio progress coming through and driving value in 2026?
Ted Fjällman
Thank you for that. That's obviously front and center of my mind on a continual basis.
I would be lying if I didn't think the market recovery would have come earlier. When we did the IPO, I already thought we were on the right track with that.
It's as simple as there are times when it's good to invest and there are times when it's good to sell. I thought the time where it was good to sell was going to come sooner.
It hasn't come yet. To be honest with you, though, I've also kind of given up on predicting the future with all the tumultuousness of the Trump administration.
Having said that, I think from a scientific and clinical point of view, we are really making great progress. Prokarium has really good results on the bladder cancer trial.
It has the potential to replace standard of care, as some of you know. That standard of care, there is limited amount available.
The manufacturing is very difficult. The urologists around the world are really screaming for a new solution, and Prokarium can provide that.
CG Oncology, which is in this space, Urogen and others. There are several both mid-sized biotechs and also large biotechs like J&J and others who invest significantly in the bladder cancer space.
If I just take Prokarium as an example, it is a hot area. AnaCardio is another hot area.
A few years ago, when we first invested, heart disease was not top of mind of investors at least, but it is obviously one of the biggest killers in the world. Right.
I think we are invested in areas that are really hot. We tend to invest counter-cyclically.
We go into places and into companies that may be not as sexy at the time, but we know that it's good science and it's solving a solution that is necessary. I would just ask all the shareholders to realize that, yes, we are a long-term investment.
You should definitely not be day trading or even trading on a month-by-month basis in Flerie shares. We're really a long-term investment.
Having looked at the history, you will see that we've invested in companies now that are getting more and more mature. If you saw the slide that I had in concluding remarks, you see that a lot of companies are in phase two.
That's when we get efficacy results. That's when the pharma companies get excited and we can make a deal.
What I can say is I cannot promise anything, but it's front and center on my mind to try and make partnering deals and get exits for some of our companies.
Linus Sigurdson
I appreciate that answer. Then finally, I just wanted to ask if there are any more takeaways that you would highlight from JPMorgan?
Ted Fjällman
I was amazed by Aktis Oncology, the first IPO of the year. That's obviously highlighted a lot in all the discussions at JPMorgan.
This is a pre-clinical company in Boston that raised 320 million U.S. dollars.
Their post-money valuation was a billion, and then the first few days it went up to 1.2 billion dollars. You're having a 1.2 billion dollar company, pre-clinical company.
That's incredible. Again, I point out that that's when pharma realizes that biotech companies have alternatives.
Pharma has generally been buying late-stage assets because they need to replenish their pipelines, and it makes most sense to buy late-stage assets because they will obviously help replenish the pipeline sooner. As soon as they see that they might lose out to the IPO market, that's when they buy earlier-stage assets, because if they don't buy them, they go IPO and they become competitors instead.
I think that if the IPO market in the U.S. has a few more Aktis, and also the European IPO market gets going, that's when pharma will say, wow, we really need to deploy that capital.
They are. They do have big war chests.
I think the machine just needs to get going, and it will. It's just a matter of time.
Linus Sigurdson
Thank you very much, Ted.
Ted Fjällman
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you, Linus Sigurdson from DNB Carnegie. Do we have any additional questions?
No more questions. Ted, do you have any final remarks before we conclude?
Ted Fjällman
I just want to point out what we did in ChromaFora. I think the acquisition of that subsidiary of Montrose, I think it plays ChromaFora.
It's one of our odd ones, but I like to talk about it sometimes. It's a clean tech company that really has the potential to clean water of PFAS.
Most of you have read a lot about PFAS. The changes in the regulation are coming in Europe, but the regulation coming has been a bit delayed because actually it's such a big problem that politicians have an issue with enforcing it, because there are no solutions.
ChromaFora has that solution. It has several pilot plants already running, and we have European Investment Bank money as well.
Now with this acquisition of that subsidiary of Montrose, we actually can immediately start selling solutions to customers today that are taking care of these long-chain PFAS. In other words, ChromaFora is also a very exciting development, even though it's not our core in pharma and biotech.
I hope if you have any other questions, you can of course send your questions to [email protected], Investor Relations email that we have. Otherwise, I look forward to speaking to you again in some other venue.
Operator
Thank you very much, and thank you all for today.
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