Aberdeen Asset Managers Private Equity has been appointed by Capital for Enterprise Fund Managers Limited to manage the Capital for Enterprise Fund A.
Aberdeen Asset Managers Private Equity has been appointed by Capital for Enterprise Fund Managers Limited to manage the Capital for Enterprise Fund A.
Aberdeen started working on investing this fund soon after the Capital for Enterprise fund was launched in January as part of the Real Help for Business programme.
In total GBP75m has been committed to the CFE fund of which GBP60m has been allocated to two fund managers, Aberdeen and Octopus Investments. Each will oversee the management of a GBP30m fund.
Aberdeen will focus on applicants from the East Midlands, North West, Yorkshire and Humber, North East, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Octopus will focus on applications made by businesses based in the Southern part of the UK including London, the South West, East Anglia, the West Midlands and Wales.
Both Capital for Enterprise Funds have been designed to offer equity or quasi equity financing and will focus on investment in fundamentally sound businesses with existing cash flows and genuine growth potential but which are currently unable to access the funding they require. Since mid-January, both Aberdeen and Octopus have been identifying and reviewing applicants to the CFE fund and will be making investments over the next 12 months.
Investments made by the Capital for Enterprise Fund A will typically consist of a combination of ordinary shares and loan notes, which have an anticipated term of up to five years. The exact terms offered will vary depending on the nature of the business and its individual situation.
Although the Aberdeen and Octopus managed Capital for Enterprise Funds will have no sectoral bias, both will be prohibited from investing in certain sectors, including those which contravene accepted standards of moral and ethical behaviour.
Andrew Craig, investment director, Aberdeen (pictured), says: ‘As one of the UK’s most experienced and active private equity fund managers investing in SMEs through our network of five regional offices the team at Aberdeen is delighted to be appointed as one of only two managers to invest and manage this vital new fund. Given the current challenging debt markets there is a clear need for this fund as it can offer highly flexible funding solutions by way of mezzanine finance, equity finance or a mixture of both to support the growth and development of SMEs across the UK.’
