Activist investor Kelso Group Holdings has seen its investment in over-50s group Saga soar by 40 per cent in less than a month.
Kelso, which is also an investor in NCC Group and THG, raised £2.1m through a new share placing in December 2025.
On January 6th, 2026, Kelso announced it had completed the purchase of 400,000 shares at an average share price of 386.5p.
At the time Saga’s market capitalisation was £551.5m.
Last week the company, which is the UK’s specialist in products and services for people over 50, delivered a positive trading update and said it expected to report an underlying profit before tax that is ahead of the prior year.
Today, Saga’s share price rose by 5 per cent to a five-year high of 550p – giving it a market cap of more than £800m.
The gain represents an increase of more than 40 per cent on Kelso’s investment and vindicates their publicly stated belief in January that Saga’s share price was undervalued.
At the time, the activist investor singled out Saga’s management team, in particular the role of chairman Sir Roger De Haan, for leading Saga’s recovery post-Covid.
De Haan ran Saga for 20 years before selling it to private equity in 2004.
Speaking in January, Kelso’s chairman, Sir Nigel Knowles, said: “We believe Saga’s management have done an excellent job turning Saga around in the last five years and materially reducing the debt while growing pre-tax profit.
“The importance of Sir Roger De Haan’s personal backing through significant equity and loan commitments during those hard times should not be forgotten acknowledging that the loans have now been repaid.
“We believe Saga has the ability, with its focus on travel with ancillary financial services, to return to being a multi-billion pound company.”
Kelso Group Holdings is a listed investment vehicle founded in November 2022 and its current principal holdings are Saga plc, NCC Group plc, THG plc, Angling Direct plc, The Works.co.uk Plc and Selkirk plc.
Kelso expects to announce other new investments during 2026.