The Lemon Fool

A most pertinent post on Sharesoc today from Roger Lawson drawing attention to the questions he is posing at next months agm re the surge in management fees on Northern since the Mercia take over. He calculates it currently at 4.5% which I think most people would regard as way too high.
I haven't held Northern for some years, having been a founder shareholder as I got fed up having my cheques returned for top up issues, but for any holder this management figure is probably less than ideal.

Thanks for flagging this, I will now definately attend AGM. As far as I understand it the the fees agreement was
novated from the previous investment adviser, NVM Private Equity to Mercia in 2019. The growth in fees as a %age of net assets over the last two years is almost entirely due to the payment of performance fees not an increase in ongoing fees.
Whilst there is a very good case for not having/removing performance fees in the investment adviser agreement, I still prefer to take the total return growth even if it means, under the present agreement, we have to pay these high fees.

I do support Roger Lawson's effort to challenge the VCT directors to justify the acceptance of performance fees

Sharesoc posting ("Northern Venture Trust and Other VCTs") here: https://www.sharesoc.org/blog/vcts/northern-venture-trust-and-other-vcts/
(Does not seem to require login, full article seems to be in the public domain; I am a sharesoc member so saw the posting too yesterday)

Filling up fast, N1 closed.

Further to the announcement made by Northern Venture Trust PLC (“NVT”) on 10 January 2022 in conjunction with Northern 2 VCT PLC (“N2VCT”) and Northern 3 VCT PLC (“N3VCT”) in respect of the offers of new ordinary shares for subscription in the 2021/22 tax year, NVT announces that its offer of new ordinary shares to raise a total of up to £6.0 million is now fully subscribed and no further applications will be accepted.

The offers by N2VCT and N3VCT to raise a total of up to £17.0 million each in the 2021/22 tax year remain open for subscription and will close when fully subscribed, but in any case no later than 12 noon on 31 March 2022