After four and a half years, the CEO of ASX-listed VC fund Touch Ventures is swapping venture investing for private equity.

Hein Vogel is leaving Touch Ventures for Hg Capital. Sendle.

Institutional investors in the listed venture capital fund set up by Afterpay have urged major shareholder Gannet Capital to take fresh steps to unlock value following the departure of the vehicle's CEO. 

Hein Vogel, CEO of ASX-listed Touch Ventures since 2019, will leave the business at the end the week after he and the board "reached a consensus on his departure" following a multi-year market beating for the fund.

The Touch share price is down to less than 8 cents, well down from when it traded at 47 cents a share following its October 2021 listing. The fund privately values its portfolio of companies at $50.9 million, having effectively written off more than half of its initial investment. 

Vogel is set to join Hg Capital, a global private equity firm targeting tech buyouts. The banker confirmed his career move to Capital Brief but did not answer subsequent questions or phone calls. 

His departure comes two months after Ganett Capital became the largest single shareholder of Touch when it bought a 19.99% stake from Block, which in turn had inherited the position from Afterpay after acquiring the buy, now pay later platform for $39 billion in 2022. 

Led by Glenn Poswell, Gannet had been expected to shake up Touch as long-term fund managers called for him to "wind the fucking thing up" and return capital to shareholders as the company's public valuation sunk below its own cash balance.

Poswell, now an independent director, has promised to update the market at its AGM in early May. Most expect the fund will unveil a new, more conservative investment strategy in an urgent bid to regain the confidence of shareholders. The fund still has around $60 million in remaining cash to deploy.

This really needs to be wound up and cash returned to investors. I think there will be activist at some point or another.

Still at cash backing so maybe not cheap enough.

Also interesting to see all these BNPL companies near worthless - The gradual, sudden demise of the BNPL sector — Capital Brief - I do wonder what price Afterpay would be trading at if it had stayed as a stand along company on the ASX.

This is Afterpay's venture captial arm that was spun out into an ASX listed company from what I understand.

Trading at $0.14 or about $96M in MC.

Claimed NTA of $0.265 per share of which $64M or $0.09 per share in cash.

The rest being the below investments valued by them at $131M which the market obviously doesn't believe or is ignoring.

Wouldn't know if any of the investmetns are worth anything but highlighting if anyone was interested. They are buying back shares now.