Business Growth Fund (BGF), established to help Britain’s fast growing smaller and medium sized businesses, has appointed James Austin as Investment Director to expand its presence in the South West and South Wales and to help drive investment in the region.
Austin joins Regional Director Paul Oldham in Bristol and his appointment brings the BGF team to 48 people, working from six regional offices across the UK. He has been working with SMEs for more than 15 years, having previously worked at Grant Thornton, RBS and latterly the South team of LDC.
Since its launch in May, BGF has scaled its local capabilities so as to be able to meet its long term objective of offering equity investment to up to 40 businesses a year and contributing to the growth of the UK economy.
In September, BGF’s Bristol-based team led the BGF’s first investment into Benefex, a leading provider of online employee benefits software.
BGF makes long-term equity investments to fund a wide variety of requirements, including: increasing working capital, capital to make a strategic acquisition or to grow capacity; delivering a step change in sales and marketing; launching an export drive; or, developing new products. BGF operates in partnership with businesses, investing between £2m and £10m in return for a minority equity stake.
Austin says: “BGF is a unique organisation in the UK and I am delighted to be joining at this early stage in its lifecycle. The current outlook for small and medium sized business is undoubtedly challenging, but the mandate of BGF will provide a completely new source of long term funding for companies with the ambition to grow”.
Paul Oldham, BGF Regional Director for the South West and South Wales, says: “It is great to welcome James to the team and to strengthen our presence in this region with another experienced investor. We are seeing a strong pipeline of opportunities and are keen to put our capital to work so that businesses in this region have access to the finance they need to grow.
“We urge business owners in the South West and Wales to act on their growth ambitions and consider how best they can be financed for the future. At BGF we believe that equity has always been one of the most effective ways to fund a growing business and as equity investors, with interests aligned with those of business owners, we will work hard to further the growth potential of our investee companies.”
