Three limited life Puma VCTs wind-up

Tax-efficient investment specialist Puma Investments has announced shareholders of Puma VCT V have unanimously voted in favour of placing the venture capital trust (VCT) into members' voluntary liquidation.

The three VCTs are "limited life", which tend to wind up in the fifth or sixth year. Puma VCT V, which was launched in 2008, earlier this month paid a 21p dividend, taking total cash distributions to date to 40p per share. The winding-up vote was put to shareholders at the extraordinary general meeting in early October and Puma VCT V was de-listed from the London Stock Exchange on 9 October.

The members' voluntary liquidation of Puma VCT III and Puma VCT IV was also completed.

The latter two VCTs raised £39 million at launch, and have distributed 93.3p per share and 94.6p per share respectively, compared to an original net cost of investment for a higher-rate taxpayer of 60 pence per share.

David Kaye, chief executive of Puma Investments, said: "We believe the distributions we have achieved for these three VCTs is a strong vindication for our asset-backed strategy."

Puma VCT V is on course to return 106p per share in cash distributions to shareholders, which would make it the most successful limited-life VCT to date, significantly beating Puma's own limited life VCT record.

The appointed liquidators include D R Rubin & Partners, who will oversee the orderly distribution of the remaining assets to shareholders.