St Peter Port says to reach target on IPO firms

LONDON, July 9 (Reuters) - Britain's St Peter Port Capital Ltd (SPPC.L) said on Wednesday that in the year to end-March 2009 it expected to have investments in about 40 companies planning public listings, in line with its target.

"The objective of the fund always was to have about 40 companies in total ... in any one year," said Director Graham Shore as the investment company posted annual profit of 3.7 million pounds ($7.3 million).

"We would expect to get to 40 or close to 40 (this financial year)."

The prolonged credit crisis has dented investor appetite. Global initial public offering (IPO) activity totalled $34.8 billion in the second quarter, a 13 percent drop from the first quarter and a 69 percent slump from a year ago, Thomson Reuters data showed.

St Peter Port, which listed on London's junior AIM bourse in April last year, had investments in 32 pre-IPO companies at the end of the 2007-08 financial year, mainly in oil and gas, mining and renewable energy.

St Peter Port will likely continue investing primarily in those three sectors, but a few years from now it could switch focus, for example to technology companies, Shore said.

"What we are interested in is companies that we believe have a good prospect of floating within the next six to 12 months."

He added that global oil production was likely to increase significantly over the next few years and that growth in Brazil, Russia, India and China would continue to support commodity prices.

Many of the companies St Peter Port has investments in are outside Britain, and the fund expects many of them to list in North America, particularly Canada, or other markets outside of Britain.

St Peter Port has 25 million pounds available to invest in more pre-IPO companies. "The board views the outlook with confidence," it said in a statement. (Reporting by Olesya Dmitracova; Editing by Quentin Bryar)