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Shareholders consider the ability to support growing UK businesses and the dividend yield resulting from that growth as significant factors, alongside tax relief, when investing in VCTs, according to new research commissioned by private equity fund manager YFM Equity Partners.
The research, carried out by FWD Research, surveyed over 1000 YFM shareholders to discover their reasons for investing in VCTs. Unsurprisingly, 90 per cent of respondents said that they chose to invest in VCTs primarily due to the tax relief on offer. However, 75 per cent also identified dividend yield as a key driver behind this investment, and nearly half
Fintech research veteran Amar Rajani has joined the FeedStock Advisory Board, effective immediately.
Rajani is Founder and Managing Director of Argella Limited, an advisory firm specialising in FinTech and with specialist knowledge in the research and regulatory space. Prior to this, he spent the past 17 years at Bloomberg LP, where he was Global Product Manager for their research management business with responsibility for the MiFID II research stream. During this period, he was also a founding member of Bloomberg’s Enterprise Products and Solutions team, as well as manager of several teams including London buy-side.
Charlie Henderson, Managing Director
By George Ralph, RFA – Outsourcing your IT support may seem like a luxury in austerity Britain, but it can save time, drive efficiencies and actually give firms a competitive edge. Employees are key stakeholders in defining the perception of a firm, and if they receive a great service when they have an issue with their IT, it will reflect well on the firm’s reputation.
By outsourcing IT support, firms can avoid downtime before it affects business. Reliable partners will make a significant investment in technology to monitor infrastructure, quickly identifying issues and often resolving them before they are brought
Law firm Howard Kennedy has advised new client Arthur Online Limited, a property management software firm, on its first round of external funding, which raised over GBP1 million via equity subscriptions.
Founded and developed by property managers for property managers, Arthur (www.arthuronline.co.uk) provides a ‘one-stop-shop’, cloud-based, end-to-end property management solution which simplifies the process of property management by allowing a group of interconnected stakeholders to connect and share through a platform from anywhere in the world. Arthur was established in 2014 and has experienced huge success in the UK and internationally. It is currently used to manage over 50,000 units
Muzinich & Co has hired Howard Mahon as Director, Pan-Europe Private Debt.
Mahon will be based in the firm’s newly-opened Dublin office. He will seek to expand the firm’s private debt capabilities and grow a team dedicated to the Irish market in this newly-created role.
Private debt is a relatively new but growing segment of the Irish investment market. The aim of the asset class is to seek to provide growth capital to Irish SMEs and corporates in the form of senior, unitranche and mezzanine debt, potentially with a combination of equity.
Mahon joins from AIB, where he was
A majority of the UK private equity and real estate industry believes that a ‘soft’ Brexit will help fundraising. Similarly in the US, political instability is having a negligible effect on US mangers’ ability to raise funds from investors, according to research from Augentius, one of the world’s largest independent private equity and real estate fund administrators.
The findings come from Augentius’ 2017 summer survey, and form part of a snapshot of sentiment across the global private equity and real estate industry, based on a survey of 100-plus investors and managers. The full report can be downloaded here
The findings
Asset management consultancy MJ Hudson has launched its Fund Management Solutions team in continental Europe, from new offices in central Luxembourg.
The Luxembourg office provides its clients with increased options post-Brexit and guarantees EU operating capacity.
Research conducted recently by MJ Hudson has found that two-thirds of UK-based fund managers and three-quarters of their continental Europe-based peers do not believe that Theresa May’s Brexit negotiations will deliver an outcome that is ideal to the UK asset management industry.
More than 70 per cent of fund investors based outside the UK predict that, by the end of 2020, the
AMP Capital’s Diversified Infrastructure Trust (ADIT) has, for the second year in a row, topped GRESB Infrastructure’s rankings as the best infrastructure fund globally for its environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance.
AMP Capital’s Global Infrastructure Fund and Irish Infrastructure Fund (which it manages alongside Irish Life Investment Managers) were also ranked third and second, respectively, when compared to their peer group.
GRESB assesses the ESG performance of real assets around the world. GRESB’s 2017 infrastructure report included submissions from 64 funds and 160 infrastructure assets worldwide. The scores are a combination of fund and underlying asset ESG performance.
Brock Capital Group has appointed Trevor Kidd as a Senior Managing Director.
Kidd has over 35 years of experience as a business owner and entrepreneur with extensive international experience in niche manufacturing, telecommunications, technology, private banking and specialty finance with a progressive background in multi-business senior executive level management.
Former roles include founder and CEO of K-Tech Microprecision (UK and Europe), a leading fibre optic component manufacturing specialist acquired by 3M Corporation; founder and Chairman of Auriga Europe (International), a specialist telecom accessory products online distributor; and Chairman of the Advisory Board for Exterprise Europe, an enabling intelligent (AI)
Costello has secured USD1 million in funding led by Dundee Venture Capital with participation from Elevate Ventures, M25 Group, and Service Provider Capital.
Costello’s sales deal management platform helps sales reps consistently follow sales methodology, gives managers visibility into the quality of every deal and shows sales leaders what’s working and what’s not.
Costello connects sales team members to close deals faster, reduce administrative tasks, and gain valuable insights.
“We worked collaboratively with over 50 sales leaders and professionals to solve the most important challenge faced by sales reps and leaders – execution,” said Costello Founder Frank Dale.
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