Director & Chair of the Risk Committee

HICL's investment proposition is to deliver long-term, sustainable income from a diversified portfolio of investments in core social and digital infrastructure

FTSE:250 LSE Main Market Premium Listed | NAV >£3.8bn

Investment Manager: InfraRed Capital Partners

Director & Chair of the Risk Committee

As a growth capital investor, Chrysalis targets investment into innovative and high-growth private companies with proven business models and the potential to transform their sectors. Significant holdings to date include Starling Bank, Klarna, Wise, Featurespace, Deep Instinct, thebrandtechGroup amongst others

LSE Main Market Premium Listed | NAV c.£0.9bn

Investment Advisor: Chrysalis Investment Partners LLP

Senior Independent Director ('SID') & Chair of Market & Risk Committee

In managed wind-down FY25/26

JARA invests across a diverse range of real asset classes including industrial and specialist real estate, infrastructure, energy transition, transport and liquid REIT strategies

LSE Main Market Premium Listed | NAV: c.£0.5bn

Investment Manager: JPMorgan Global Asset Management

Director (2018 - 2023)

A highly engaged investor targeting significant capital appreciation from investing in and agitating change within large cap listed companies (Ferguson & Unilever)

LSE SFS (Specialist Funds Segment) | NAV: c.£0.5bn

Investment Manager: Trian Partners (New York)

Successfully concluded its investment strategy driving change within both Ferguson (NYSE) and Unilever (LSE), realising a 2.1x ROE in less than 4 years hold-period before distributing the underlying positions in-specie to shareholders and then wound-up by way of a members voluntary liquidation

Director & Chair of Remuneration Committee (2018 - 2024), Chair of Portfolio Committee for the Strategic Review (2023 - 2024)

CityWire's "Board of the Year 2024" Award

Hipgnosis Songs Fund was the first UK investment company offering investors a pure-play investment exposure to Songs and associated musical intellectual property rights; catalogues of the most culturally significant songs of the 20th and 21st centuries, written by the world's most talented and important Songwriters

FTSE:250 LSE Main Market Premium Listed | NAV >$2bn

Investment Advisor: Hipgnosis Songs Management (a party controlled by Blackstone)

Following a shareholder vote against the 5-year Continuation Resolution, the Board led a six-month Strategic Review underpinned by extensive engagement with all major shareholder groups. Shareholders were consulted on a full suite of alternative options available including wholesale renegotiation of the existing investment advisory agreement, a tender for a new 3rd party investment advisor, an internally resourced and managed executive organisation, a material recapitalisation via proceeds from strategic asset disposals as well as a full return of investor capital by way of a public-to-private takeover of the entire Company.

As groundwork for its Strategic Review, the Board commissioned a full suite of forensic financial, legal and additional independent valuation due diligence workstreams. Upon completion in March 2024, the findings were made public, raising serious questions of misrepresentation and mismanagement by the Investment Advisor (Hipgnosis Songs Management) in its reporting obligations to the Board, together with a lack of oversight by Blackstone in its capacity as both controlling shareholder of, and related-party to, the Investment Advisor. Under these circumstances and ongoing restrictive contractual provisions of the Investment Advisory Agreements, the Board concluded that shareholder value would be maximised under a competitive takeover process.

Having received an unsolicited Offer for the Company from US-based Concord Music Group and with the Investment Advisory Agreement all but terminated, the Board took executive responsibility to run a highly visible public process, with multiple independent bidders that achieved an increase in Offer on five occasions and concluded by making its final recommendation to shareholders at $1.31 per share by way of a Scheme of Arrangement with Blackstone. The final bid represented a 45% premium to the undisturbed pre-bid share price and an 18% premium to the last independent value of the Company's Net Assets ('NAV'). Shareholders were delighted with the outcome produced by the Board and in excess of 99% of votes were cast in favour.

The Company's innovative strategy as a disruptor in the music rights industry was a well-documented (at times ill informed) source of financial and music industry press coverage internationally. The bidding process only served to re-underwrite the Company's investment proposition as a unique alternative asset fund focused on global music rights royalties backed by an inimitable world-class portfolio of songwriter catalogues that had been acquired in just five years. In a period largely defined by a highly volatile macroeconomic interest rate environment post-Covid, the Company's shares traded at a discount to NAV but the Board's commitment to this process proved the high quality and enduring value of this portfolio of assets with total shareholder returns (inclusive of dividends) ranging from c.24% for shareholders who held from IPO (at a minimum) to 95% (at a maximum) for those purchasing shares in the last 12 months of the Company's life.