Final results for the year to 31 December 2025

Literacy Capital PLC

25 March 2026

 

The information contained in this announcement is restricted and is not for publication, release or distribution in the United States of America, any member state of the European Economic Area, Canada, Australia, Japan or the Republic of South Africa.

25 March 2026

Literacy Capital plc

Final results and audited financial statements for the year to 31 December 2025

Helping to build great businesses to generate superior returns

Literacy Capital plc ("Literacy", "BOOK", the "Fund", or the "Company"), a listed investment trust primarily focused on investing directly into private businesses based in the UK, today announces its final results for the year to 31 December 2025.

A PDF copy of the results can be viewed at: www.literacycapital.com/investors/reports-and-results

Performance Highlights:

●	Diluted Net Asset Value (NAV) per share of 484.3p with Diluted NAV of £291.4m
	§	Diluted NAV per share, adjusted for the B share distribution, increased by a modest 0.3% in the twelve months to 31 December 2025
	§	BOOK's share price decreased 15.6% over the same period, a total shareholder return of (13.4)% inclusive of the capital return
●	Significant increase in cash realised in 2025, highlighting the proactive approach to actively manage and recycle capital to enhance returns
	§	£42.5m cash received by BOOK in 2025, an increase of 41.2% compared to 2024, the majority of which (£26.3m) was generated from the transaction involving Velociti Solutions. This transaction delivered a 14.8x Multiple of Money (MoM) return and an IRR of 70% for Literacy's shareholders
	§	The remainder of the cash was generated through four portfolio company refinancings, and distributions from third party fund interests, enabling a reduction in RCF debt and a £6m B share distribution to shareholders
●	Attractive opportunities to deploy capital into resilient businesses that offer the potential for strong returns for the Fund
	§	Two new platform investments completed in 2025, with both Trinitatum and Red Sky Food Group contributing strongly since investment. Red Sky demonstrated the strength of its performance by becoming a top ten holding. Follow-on capital was also provided to several portfolio companies to support and accelerate growth
	§	£22.7m cash invested by BOOK in 2025; materially lower than the prior two years, reflecting the focus on maximising value from existing investments
●	Literacy's investee companies remain prudently valued and modestly leveraged
	§	On 31 December 2025, the weighted average EV / EBITDA multiple for Literacy's ten largest investments (comprising 82.8% of Diluted NAV) was 9.4x, compared to 8.8x at 31 December 2024
	§	The average net debt / EBITDA was 2.8x (calculated on the same basis as above), an increase on twelve months ago (2.3x at 31 December 2024) following the refinancing activity during the year
●	Ongoing charitable donations to literacy charities, giving disadvantaged children across the UK the chance to thrive
	§	£1.5m of charitable donations provided for in 2025
	§	Total donations now amount to £12.7m since inception of Literacy Capital

Performance to 31 December 2025

% total return	3 months	1 year	3 years	Since admission1	Since Inception2
BOOK NAV per share3	(4.5)%	+0.3%	+17.5%	+207.7%	+394.3%
BOOK total shareholder return	+3.1%	(13.4)%	+6.8%	+145.6%	n/a1
FTSE All-Share Closed End Investment Trust Index	+3.7%	+16.1%	+32.4%	+16.8%	+73.0%
FTSE All-Share Index	+6.4%	+24.0%	+46.5%	+54.5%	+70.7%

¹ BOOK was admitted to the London Stock Exchange on 25 June 2021. Share price data therefore starts at this point

² Inception date is 30 April 2018

³ The figure presented here refers to Diluted NAV per share, adjusted for the B share distribution

Comparison to prior periods

	At 31 December 2025	At 31 December 2024
Diluted NAV	£291.4m	£296.6m
Diluted NAV per share	484.3p	492.8p
Cash returned to shareholders	10.0p	-
Diluted NAV per share, adjusted for the B share distribution	494.3p	492.8p
Total NAV return	+0.3%	(1.5)%

	Year to 31 December 2025	Year to 31 December 2024
Capital invested	£22.7m	£41.1m
Cash realised	£42.5m	£30.1m
Charitable donation accrual	£1.5m	£2.7m

Richard Pindar, CEO of the Investment Manager and Director of Literacy Capital plc, commented:

"At the beginning of 2025, we stated that we were optimistic that we would be able to progress the sale of several portfolio companies, generating significant cash for BOOK. While M&A activity remained low and completed deals scarce, reflecting the ongoing political and economic uncertainty in the UK and globally, it was pleasing to announce the signing of three transactions between July 2025 and January 2026. These transactions were agreed at a combined 39% premium to their prior carrying values, demonstrating our ability to deliver value for shareholders during our period of ownership and execute successful sales, despite the market backdrop.

We work very closely with our portfolio companies, ensuring that they are well-led, and that we understand the challenges and opportunities that they face, in order to help them navigate the current environment. As I mentioned in this statement twelve months ago, ensuring that our portfolio companies are actively managed, with appropriate leadership and complete management teams, is a core component of our value-add and approach when it comes to making and managing our investments, rather than just 'stock picking'.

Against this backdrop, whilst the sale of these three more mature holdings was very welcome, overall NAV performance in 2025 was weaker than we would have liked. Overall growth in NAV was suppressed primarily by weaker trading at RCI and Grayce, resulting in reductions to their carrying values; management changes have been made in both businesses to improve performance. It is clear that economic growth, confidence and activity within UK businesses remains fragile. Additional costs and continued uncertainty over the last 18 months have had a clear impact on companies' propensity to hire or retain staff, as well as their appetite to invest and spend. The direction in which employment law and tax legislation have been heading recently has compounded these issues, making full time employment less attractive for both corporates and individuals compared to self-employment.

In this environment, we have remained disciplined and selective in our investment approach. While we appraise opportunities and hold investments across a wide range of sectors, we never endeavour to be heroic by deploying capital into businesses facing obvious headwinds. As a result, we have been even more selective regarding the new investments that we have appraised and completed in 2025, as we consider these against the context of current market conditions and uncertainty.

Both 2025 vintage investments, Red Sky Food Group and Trinitatum, were deemed to have attractive

characteristics for the current environment. These include delivering, firstly, great value and products to their customers, making switching to alternative products or service models to reduce costs difficult;

and secondly, very attractive levels of output, revenue and profit per employee. On top of this, demand was expected to be resilient in all market conditions. Both investments have delivered better returns than we would ordinarily expect from businesses we have owned for less than 12 months and show strong promise.

In relation to the share price performance during 2025, we recognise that there are several ingredients needed to improve this in 2026 and to narrow the discount to Diluted NAV. More positive announcements and stronger NAV performance, which we continuously strive to achieve, clearly will play an important role. Alongside this, there are several other marketing initiatives underway to

improve demand for BOOK's shares and strengthen the share price, and we expect these actions to gather momentum through 2026."

Master Investor Show

Paul Pindar (Chair) and Richard Pindar (CEO) of Literacy's Investment Manager will be presenting at the Master Investor Show at the Business Design Centre on 25 April 2026.

More information on this event can be found here: https://www.masterinvestorshow.com/

Investor Meet Company presentation

Paul Pindar (Chair) and Richard Pindar (CEO) of Literacy's Investment Manager will provide a live presentation and update on 27 April 2026 at 14:00 BST. This will follow the publication of BOOK's Q1 2026 factsheet.

The presentation is open to all existing and potential shareholders. Questions can be submitted pre-event via your Investor Meet Company dashboard up until 26 Apr 2026 09:00 BST, or at any time during the live presentation. Investors can sign up for free at the following link: https://www.investormeetcompany.com/literacy-capital-plc/register-investor

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For further information, please contact:

Literacy Capital plc / Book Asset Management LLP

Richard Pindar / Aasha Tailor

[phone]

MHP Group

Reg Hoare / Ollie Hoare / Matthew Taylor

[e-mail]

[phone]

Deutsche Numis

Hugh Jonathan / George Shiel

[phone]

About Literacy Capital plc

Literacy Capital (BOOK.L) is a closed-end investment company that was co-founded by Paul Pindar and Richard Pindar in 2017 with £54m of capital. Literacy listed on the London Stock Exchange in June 2021, before gaining Investment Trust status on 1 April 2022. The Company focuses on opportunities to invest for the long-term in growing private businesses where a clear route to creating additional value can be seen with its support.

It also has a unique charitable objective, to donate 0.5% of annual NAV to charities focused on improving UK literacy in children. £12.7m has been donated or reserved for donation to charities since the trust's creation in 2017. For more information, please visit our website: www.literacycapital.com.

A copy of this announcement will be available on the Company's website at www.literacycapital.com.

The information contained in this announcement regarding the Company's investments has been provided by the relevant underlying portfolio company and has not been independently verified by the Company. The information contained herein is unaudited.

This announcement is for information purposes only and is not an offer to invest. All investments are subject to risk.  Past performance is no guarantee of future returns.  Prospective investors are advised to seek expert legal, financial, tax and other professional advice before making any investment decision.  The value of investments may fluctuate.  Results achieved in the past are no guarantee of future results. Neither the content of the Company's website, nor the content on any website accessible from hyperlinks on its website for any other website, is incorporated into, or forms part of, this announcement nor, unless previously published by means of a recognised information service, should any such content be relied upon in reaching a decision as to whether or not to acquire, continue to hold, or dispose of, securities in the Company.

LEI: 2549006P3DFN5HLFGR54

 

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