Business update 31 March 2026

Capital distribution

The € 18.73 million capital reduction (€ 1 per share), approved during the extraordinary general meeting of December 29, 2025, was paid out on March 23, 2026, bringing the subscribed capital from € 148.3 million to € 129.6 million, without cancellation of shares.

Results

During the first quarter of 2026, stock markets worldwide experienced volatile and negative trends. Software companies, in particular, struggled due to the potential impact of artificial intelligence on their business. Despite the solid growth figures of the listed software companies in Quest for Growth, their share prices also declined, reflecting general market sentiment rather than underlying business results. Since many of the investments in venture and in growth capital and venture and growth capital funds are valued based on a “peer group” (valuation multiples of comparable listed companies), those segments were also hit hard as of March 31, 2026.

Consequently, Quest for Growth closed the first three months of the financial year with a net loss of € 10.26 million, almost exclusively attributable to unrealized impairments, specifically €5.97 million on investments in listed shares, € 1.74 million on investments in venture and growth capital, and € 2.23 million on investments in venture and growth capital funds. The return on net asset value was -8.4%. Over the first three months of the year, the Quest for Growth share saw its market price fall by 10.1% (based on the holding period return method with daily intervals and an adjustment for the distribution at the ex-date on March 19) to a closing price of € 2.85 on March 31, 2026. The discount of the share price relative to net asset value increased to 48.2% at the end of the quarter, compared to 40.5% at the end of 2025.