Onward Opportunities Limited
Onward Opportunities Limited (ONWD) is a Guernsey-incorporated, closed-ended investment company listed on AIM. It is externally managed (no employees) and invests primarily in equity and equity-related securities of UK smaller companies (predominantly AIM-listed, typically sub-£250m market cap, with focus below £100m), targeting minority stakes of 5%-25% and seeking to drive value creation via active engagement with investee companies over a 3-5 year holding period.
FY2025 in sixty seconds
year to 31 Dec 2025 · approved 27 Feb 2026 · 90 pages · FCA NSM
Onward Opportunities is a Guernsey-based investment company that buys stakes in small UK listed companies, so it has no sales in the usual sense. Its profit for the year to 31 December 2025 was £4.3m, against £4.8m the year before.
Almost all of that profit came from rises in the value of its shareholdings, plus a little dividend income. Fees paid to its outside fund manager, including a fee for beating a performance target, reduced it. Gains on its investments were slightly smaller than in 2024. The value of its assets per share, counting returns as if reinvested, showed a return of +11.1% for the year.
The company ended the year with £249k in cash and no borrowings. It raised £7.5m by selling new shares, helping lift its net assets to £42.7m from £31.0m, and it paid no dividend. Management expects interest rate cuts in 2026, sees many investment opportunities and raised a further £4.5m in January 2026. The auditor gave a clean opinion. The main risks flagged include heavy reliance on one lead fund manager and owning only a small number of companies.
Net gains on investments held at fair value through profit or loss (capital appreciation of portfolio holdings)
Net investment gains of £5,460k in FY25 (FY24: £5,745k) were the Company's principal source of total return
page 65Portfolio management and performance fees scale with NAV and excess returns
Total portfolio management and performance fees of £997,000 (2024: £825,000); management fee 1.5% of NAV up to £50m, 1% above; performance fee 12.5% of excess return over hurdle
page 74Laurence Hulse (Lead Fund Manager): NAV return of +11.1% for 2025 contributes to +50.2% since inception in 2023; the Company is fast approaching £50m in capitalisation for the first time
page 3The Board has neither declared nor paid a dividend for FY2025 (2024: £nil). No stated formal dividend policy was disclosed; the Company's objective is total return via capital growth
page 423 years on one page · FY2023–FY2025
| Line | FY202312/23 | FY202412/24 | FY202512/25 |
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| Profit for the year | |||
| Basic EPS | |||
| Dividend per share | |||
| Free cash flow | |||
| Net debt (negative = net cash) | |||
| Shares in issue |
GBP millions, negatives in brackets. Per-share lines in pence. Share counts in millions. Margins and returns as percentages, calculated from the filed figures. later is what a following report restated the figure to; vs is a second reading that disagrees. The figure shown is the one the original filing printed, and both readings are kept. Click any figure: opens the report page it was read from, highlighted; shows how it was calculated.
Nothing restated
Every figure is read again from the following year’s report: 15 confirmed, 1 differ.
No figure has been restated: every figure a later report printed again, it printed the same.