Victory Park Capital Specialty Lending fund holds strong on dividend as activist investors build stakes

Two activist investors have built up small stakes in the £290m VPC Specialty Lending Investments trust, following the sale of a sizeable stake in the fund by troubled fund manager Neil Woodford.

Weiss Asset Management, based in the US in Wilmington, Delaware now has less than 5 per cent of the total share capital of VPC Specialty Lending Investments through its Brookdale Global Opportunity Fund, itself domiciled in the Cayman Islands.

LIM Advisors, based in the British Virgin Islands, another activist investor, has also recently bought a 3.43 per cent stake in VPC Specialty Lending Investments through the LIM Asia Multi-Strategy Fund and LIM Asia Special Situations Master Fund.

LIM Advisors,last year bought a similar stake in Ranger Direct Lending, a troubled portfolio that is currently being wound down. Something that it pushed for.

VPC, three years ago was somewhat challenged but following a two-year transition to balance sheet lending exposure at the expense of P2P lending, exposure has been doing much better. The fund has declared an on-target 2p dividends for the first quarter of 2019, its fifth consecutive at this level following a protracted period of underperformance.