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4<br />
<strong>Foresight</strong> 4 VCT plc<br />
02<br />
Chairman’s Statement<br />
I Investment Activity<br />
The level of new investment activity has started to pick up<br />
again, with two new investments being made totalling<br />
£500,000: £250,000 in Lynwood <strong>Group</strong> Holdings and<br />
£250,000 in Silvigen. This is in line with <strong>Foresight</strong>’s<br />
increasing focus on investing in the environmental<br />
infrastructure and sustainable sectors.<br />
Lynwood is an established business in the plastic building<br />
products market in the UK and has made the transition to<br />
using waste plastic streams as its raw material. Lynwood<br />
has acquired a small business with specialist expertise in<br />
manufacturing wood profile and wood replacement<br />
products from waste plastic and it is now one of the best<br />
equipped plastic recycling manufacturing operations in<br />
the UK. The company is well positioned in a growing<br />
market for recycled and sustainable products such as<br />
wood replacement, which offer considerable economic<br />
and environmental advantages.<br />
Silvigen has positioned itself to supply the urgent biomass<br />
fuel needs of the UK power generation sector and the<br />
developing industrial heat sector, both of which are driven<br />
by a number of regulatory incentives.<br />
The Company made seven follow-on investments totalling<br />
£1,311,961: Closed Loop London (£503,333), Advanced<br />
Visual Technology (£300,000), O-Gen (£210,000), The<br />
Bunker Secure Hosting (£118,700), Global Immersion<br />
(£66,670), Vectorcommand (£60,000) and Oled-T<br />
(£53,258).<br />
Advanced Visual Technology (AVT) required ongoing<br />
funding while progressing its sales process. After the<br />
period end AVT was sold to Oracle for an undisclosed<br />
amount. A further investment was made into O-Gen in<br />
April to fund the latest stage of the company’s biomass to<br />
energy plant. The plant has already produced some<br />
electricity with full commissioning expected later in 2008.<br />
The Bunker Secure Hosting is experiencing strong<br />
demand for its ultra secure IT hosting services and is<br />
currently planning for a substantial increase in its capacity.<br />
Closed Loop London has completed its first plant in<br />
Dagenham and is in the early stages of developing a<br />
second plant in the north-west of England.<br />
Global Immersion and Vectorcommand required further<br />
investment due to a shortfall in working capital as a result<br />
of poorer trading, whereas the investment in OLED-T was<br />
to finance the company on the anticipation of an<br />
impending strategic investment by a large chemicals<br />
company. Unfortunately, the strategic investment did not<br />
materialise and OLED-T’s IP was sold for €450,000.<br />
I Realisations<br />
Utarget, a provider of Internet subsite advertising, was<br />
sold to Fox International in March 2008 for total proceeds<br />
of £1,952,800 compared to an original cost of<br />
£1,000,000. This represented an uplift of almost 100%<br />
on cost in little over a year, following the original<br />
investment in December 2006.<br />
Additionally, further proceeds of £150,310 were received<br />
from the ongoing sale of the assets of The Casella <strong>Group</strong>.<br />
A final payment from the completion of the liquidation<br />
process is expected in the next few months.<br />
I Net Asset Value<br />
The net asset value per share as at 31 August 2008<br />
decreased to 104.4p compared to 110.2p as at<br />
29 February 2008.<br />
I Dividend<br />
The Company’s dividend policy is to aim to distribute to<br />
shareholders a steady flow of dividends from income and<br />
realised capital gains. Reflecting recent realised gains, an<br />
interim dividend of 5.0p per share for the year ending<br />
28 February 2009 will be paid on 19 December 2008,<br />
making 17.5p per share of cumulative dividend payments<br />
in the last three years. The ex dividend date will be<br />
10 December 2008 and the record date will be<br />
12 December 2008.<br />
I Valuation policy<br />
Investments held by the Company have been valued in<br />
accordance with the International Private Equity and<br />
Venture Capital (IPEVC) guidelines developed by the<br />
British Venture Capital Association and other<br />
organisations under which investments are valued, as<br />
defined in the guidelines, at “fair value”. Ordinarily,<br />
unquoted investments will be valued at cost for the