b'10 Mercia Asset Management PLC Annual Report & Accounts 2022Chief Executive Officers review continuedGrowing net asset value (NAV) per shareOur hybrid investment model of supporting Our significant success that we haveexciting SMEs, first through our managed funds, before selectively co-investing with seen during the last two financial years,scale-up funding from our proprietary and our positive future prospects, havecapital, is now consistently contributing to our growing NAV per share. The recent full been made possible by the combinedcash exit from Faradion, which followed less than 12 months after the successful efforts of everyone connected with Mercia. OXGENE full cash exit, demonstrates a number of key points. We are typically exiting at prices significantly above our holding valuesOXGENE at c.18million above holding value in the previous financial year, and Faradion at c.14million above the opening holding value in this financial year. These two exits alone generated c.50million in cash back to our balance sheet, meaning that we are unlikely to come back to our shareholders to ask them for more money to fund the Groups direct investment activities. Being largely comprised of unquoted investments which are not susceptible to stock market volatility, as is currently occurring, we remain confident that our maturing direct investment portfolio will continue to play an important role in increasing NAV per share in the years to come. For more detail on Mercias financial performance, please refer to Martin Glanfields Chief Financial Officer review (CFO), starting on page 36.Growing adjusted operating profitOur commitment to Mercias recently established progressive dividend policy is underpinned by Mercias profitable and cash-generative fund management operations, which also enable us to continue to invest in internal system efficiencies and our talented staff. The long-dated nature of our managed funds enables us to have confidence in the sustainability of this dividend policy. Combined, our direct investment success and our profitable fund management activities are positively contributing toour growing total shareholder return;our annual NAV per share increase plusour dividend yield. Jan Oosthuizen Alex SimpsonInvestment Manager, Investment Manager, VCT FundsNEVF'