Investec: RIT Capital Partners 'uninvestable' due to cost, transparency issues and VC exposure

Issues first 'Sell' rating on RIT

Investec has downgraded RIT Capital Partners from 'Hold' to ‘Sell’, over concerns of late-stage VC investments pushing up its risk profile and a lack of transparency around its payments to senior employees amid lacklustre returns for investors.

In an analyst note, Alan Brierley and Ben Newell from Investec, said: "For more than two decades, we viewed RIT Capital as a classic low-risk, ‘safe-harbour' investment and core holding within a diversified portfolio. "However, given what we regarded as a radical transformation in the risk profile following a material increase in higher-risk late-stage venture capital, we moved to Hold at the end of last year." They said RIT had also been removed RIT from Investec's Flexible Model Portfolio "where for so long it had been ‘one of the first names on the team sheet'." Home REIT faces ...