2020 Interogo Holding Annual Report Published

The Covid-19 pandemic brought along market disruptions and challenges to businesses all over the world and Interogo Holding’s businesses and asset classes were no exception. In the second part of this tumultuous year, Henrik Jonsson was introduced as new CEO of Interogo Holding, following Søren Hansen, who remains on the board of directors of Interogo Holding.

“2020 was an exceptional and trying year for all of us. Many have lost loved ones, and many have suffered greatly. We are not through it yet and our primary focus remain the well-being of our co-workers and to support efforts to limit the spread, still whilst taking care of our own business and investments. Thanks to our fantastic co-workers and our strong financial position, we were able to continue to develop our strategies and continue to invest throughout 2020, although not in line with our initial plan set for the year”, says Henrik Jonsson, CEO of Interogo Holding AG.

As M&A and fund-raising activities almost came to a standstill in the spring of 2020, Interogo Holding’s private equity businesses, IH International Advisors and Nalka Invest, experienced a slowdown in new investment activities and opportunities for a major part of the year. Interogo Holding’s real estate business Vastint was able to continue to deploy capital as ongoing real estate developments saw limited impact by containment measures launched by governments globally. Interogo Holding invested EUR 435m in tangible fixed assets and EUR 505m in financial assets in 2020, from EUR 475m and EUR 627m in 2019, respectively.

The real estate business saw a sharp decrease in rental income from its hotel portfolio, as many hospitality businesses were temporarily shut down following the collapse of leisure and business travels. Rental income from other properties was barely affected. Vastint’s total rental income reduced from EUR 139m in 2019 to EUR 96m in 2020.

After the slow start of 2020, the global private equity portfolio, IH International Advisors, saw a sharp increase in exit activities from its underlying fund investments in the last quarter. Nalka Invest, Interogo Holding’s direct private equity investment platform, focused on supporting its portfolio companies, completing several add-on acquisitions. All in all, investment income remained steady reaching EUR 228m, in line with 2019. Gross profit increased by 34% to reach EUR 431m, mainly driven by the strong growth of Nalka Invest’s portfolio companies.

The newest investment strategies of Interogo Holding, Infrastructure and Long-term Equity, continued to build their teams and organisations, completing no new investments during 2020. Interogo Holding’s liquid asset strategy, managed by the investment team of IFM grew its assets under management to EUR 9 055m in 2020, from EUR 7 650 in 2019.*

Interogo Holding AG is a co-shareholder, contributing capital and loan, in Inter IKEA Holding B.V., with right to potential dividends. Despite the uncertainties of the spring, IKEA Holding B.V. closed a successful financial year 2020 and distributed a dividend of EUR 850m, in line with 2019.

“With the exceptions of a few individual setbacks, mostly unrelated to the pandemic, valuations have been resilient, despite high market volatility. The high level of diversification within and across our various strategies has allowed our portfolio to weather the storm in a very satisfactory way so far”, says Henrik Jonsson.

During 2020 Interogo Holding also continued to develop its operational structure, building around Inter Fund Management (“IFM”) as a Luxembourg-based investment platform. IFM is authorized and regulated by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier ('CSSF') as an Alternative Investment Fund Manager. In this structure, the investment advisory teams, IH International Advisors, IH Long-Term Equity Advisors and IH Infrastructure Advisors, all operate as advisors to IFM, and perform deal origination, investment due diligence, investment recommendations and investment monitoring.

The liquid asset strategy remains to be managed by a dedicated team within IFM. Nalka Invest and Vastint are not integrated in the new investment platform and continue to manage their investments and assets directly.  

While the start of 2021 has looked like a continuation of 2020, the effectiveness and global roll-out of vaccines bring hope that 2021 will be a bridge to “normality”.  

“2021 will remain a challenging year for our businesses, as their respective markets and industries will face their own challenges on this bridge to normality. We are committed to support our businesses, no matter the times. We would like to thank all our co-workers for the strength, resilience and dedication they have demonstrated since the start of the pandemic”, says Henrik Jonsson.

Key figures consolidated (under Swiss GAAP FER) 1 Jan. - 31 Dec. 

AUM per investment strategy as of December 31*

The full Interogo Holding AG Annual Report 2020 is available here.

 *AUM values per investment strategy are estimated FMV (for information purposes and not audited). Our infrastructure strategy is under establishment and made no investments in 2020. For liquid assets under management, our owner, Interogo Foundation, is the main investor in the fund (2020: EUR 7,050m and 2019: 5 945)

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