Monthly Factsheet- April 2025
 |
Geiger Counter Limited Plc
Monthly Investor Report 22 May 2025
(All Factsheet data is at 30 April 2025)
The full monthly factsheet is now available on the Company's website and a summary can be found below.
NCIM - Geiger Counter Ltd - Fund Page for Geiger Counter Ltd
Enquiries:
For the Investment Manager
Craig Cleland
Manulife CQS Investment Management
0207 201 5368
For the Company Secretary and Administrator
R&H Fund Services (Jersey) Limited
Jane De Barros/Katie De La Cour
01534 825259/01534 825337
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Fund Description
The objective of Geiger Counter Limited is to provide investors with the potential for capital growth through investment primarily in the securities of companies involved in the exploration, development and production of energy, predominantly within the uranium industry. Up to 30% of the value of the Company's investment portfolio may be invested in other resource- related companies from outside the energy sector.
Portfolio Managers
Keith Watson and Robert Crayfourd
Key Advantages for the Investor
· Access to mining assets in the uranium sector
· May benefit from embedded subscription share
· Low correlation to major asset classes
Key Fund Facts1
|
Total Gross Assets |
£58.6m |
|
Reference Currency |
GBP |
|
Ordinary Shares: |
|
|
Net Asset Value |
36.76p |
|
Mid-Market Price |
33.80p |
|
Net gearing4 |
20.44% |
|
Discount |
(8.05%) |
Ordinary Share and NAV Performance2
|
|
One Month |
Three Months |
One Year |
Three Years |
Five Years |
|
|
(%) |
(%) |
(%) |
(%) |
(%) |
|
NAV |
7.20 |
(31.76) |
(49.18) |
(30.88) |
129.18 |
|
Share Price |
0.30 |
(34.11) |
(37.75) |
(48.40) |
111.25 |
Commentary3
After a torrid year-to-date performance from the uranium mining sector despite positive demand developments, the month began to show to some price recovery. This sell off appears to have been led by speculative flows following the release of the Chinese DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence (AI) model dampening power demand expectations, but the trend to greater AI power demand clearly remains.
Despite weakness in the spot uranium price and corresponding miners, we believe fundamentals for the sector remain positive. China announced towards the end of the month that it had approved the construction of 10 new reactors for a combined cost of $27bn. This represents a cost/GW of just a sixth of what was invested by EDF for the Hinkley Point reactor in the UK. China had 30 reactors under construction coming into April and this latest announcement means the country will represent the majority share of the total number of reactors being built globally. With over 150 additional reactors (with 180GW capacity) in its development pipeline, the nation's technical standardisation will likely pay dividends in optimising its overall roll out costs. China is targeting nuclear generation capacity of 65GW by the end of 2025 and 200GW by 2040. In comparison the EU has 98GW, a similar level to the US.
Elsewhere, Japanese nuclear regulators also approved the first reactor restart in four years, with Hokkaido Electric's Tomari 3 reactor, which had been shut since 2012, given clearance to restart. It was notable that Spain suffered a grid collapse during the month, with the effects reaching into Portugal and some southern regions of France. Although Spain's grid operator has yet to clarify the cause, several prior warnings of grid instability emerged following some localised blackouts in the prior week. In addition, given the cascade was triggered in the southern region that had a heavy 55% solar loading just before the blackout, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the grid was unable to offset the instability using conventional baseload power sources.
The event may add pressure for Spain to reconsider its planned premature power station closures. As with a prior blackout in Texas when wind turbines froze in the winter of 2021, the event may also focus regulators globally on instability that can result from too high a variable power loading. We believe this further strengthens the case for nuclear in the power mix as the only zero carbon baseload power generator to help balance out such fluctuations. This will also likely support life extension of western reactors and the accelerated small modular reactor (SMR) development later this decade.
The announcement from China helped revive the spot U3O8 (uranium) price which rose 5% to end April at $67.5/lb and equities recovered well with the Company NAV rising 7% compared to a 4% sterling return registered by the Solactive Uranium Pure Play Index. Notable positive contributors were made by Nexgen and Ur-Energy.
|
|
Gross Leverage6 (%) |
Commitment Leverage7 (%) |
|
Geiger Counter Ltd |
120 |
120 |
CQS (UK) LLP
4th Floor, One Strand, London WC2N 5HR, United Kingdom
T: +44 (0) 20 7201 6900 | F: +44 (0) 20 7201 1200
CQS (US), LLC
152 West 57th Street, 40th Floor, New York, NY 10019, US
T: +1 212 259 2900 | F: +1 212 259 2699
Tavistock Communications
18 St. Swithin's Lane, London EC4N 8AD
T: +44 20 7920 3150 | geigercounter@tavistock.co.uk
Sources: 1R&H Fund Services (Jersey) Limited, as at the last business day of the month indicated at the top of this report. 2R&H Fund Services Limited/DataStream, as at the last business day of the month indicated at the top of this report, total return performance net of fees and expenses based on bid prices. These include historic returns and past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. The value of investments can go down as well as up. Please read the important legal notice at the end of this document. 3Market data sourced from Bloomberg unless otherwise stated. The Fund may since have exited some or all of the positions detailed in the commentary. 4 BMO, UxC, Company data September 2023. 5 www.eia.gov. 6CQS, as at the last business day of the month indicated at the top of this report. For methodology details see Article 4(3) of Directive 2011/61/EU (AIFMD) and Articles 6, 7, 9 and 10 of Delegated Regulation 231/2013. 7CQS, as at the last business day of the month indicated at the top of this report. For methodology details see Article 4(3) of Directive 2011/61/EU (AIFMD) and Articles 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11 of Delegated Regulation 231/2013.
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