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Business Growth Fund
BGF, established in 2011 as the Business Growth Fund, is an investment company that provides growth capital for small and mid-sized businesses in the UK and Ireland. From a network of 16 offices in the UK and Ireland, the company has invested more than £3 billion in more than 400 small and mid-sized companies. Around three-quarters of its investments have been in companies based outside London and the South East. BGF typically takes minority, non-controlling shareholdings in investee companies. BGF has completed more than 150 exits by selling businesses in its portfolio. History BGF was founded in 2011 by Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered banks, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The launch followed lobbying of both Conservative and Labour politicians by businessman Sir Nigel Rudd, who had argued for the creation of an organisation to provide equity funding to help close a perceived funding gap for small and mid-sized businesses ...
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Stephen Welton
Stephen Frank Welton (born February 1961) is the founder and Executive Chairman of the Business Growth Fund (BGF). Early life and education Welton was born South Africa. He and his family moved back to the UK when he was 11 years old. Welton attended Esher College. He graduated with a law degree from Durham University in 1983. He initially trained as a barrister, before becoming a loan officer at the Bank of Boston. Career Welton was one of the founding partners of private equity firm CCMP Capital Advisors, JP Morgan's private equity arm. He was later managing director of Barclays Private Equity and co-founded Henderson Ventures. Welton is the founder and first chief executive of BGF; an investment company set up in 2011 by five UK banks – HSBC, Lloyds, Barclays, RBS and Standard Chartered – in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. By 2018, BGF had reportedly invested £1.5 billion in 220 start-ups over the previous eight years. Welton became the investor's Executi ...
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Westpac
Westpac Banking Corporation, known simply as Westpac, is an Australian multinational banking and financial services company headquartered at Westpac Place in Sydney, New South Wales. Established in 1817 as the Bank of New South Wales, it acquired the Commercial Bank of Australia in 1982 before being renamed to Westpac Banking Corporation. Westpac is one of Australia's Big Four (banks)#Australia, Big Four banks, and is Australia's first and oldest banking institution. Its name is a portmanteau of "Western" and "Pacific". As of 2021, Westpac has 14 million customers worldwide, and employs around 40,000 people. History Established in Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ... in 1817, the Bank of New South Wales (BNSW) was the first bank in Australia. Edward S ...
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Investment In The United Kingdom
The economy of the United Kingdom is a highly developed social market and market-orientated economy. It is the sixth-largest national economy in the world measured by nominal gross domestic product (GDP), ninth-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP), and twenty second-highest by GDP per capita, constituting 3.3% of nominal world GDP. By PPP (purchasing power parity) terms, UK constitutes 2.34% of world GDP. The United Kingdom is one of the most globalised economies, and comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In 2020, the UK was the fifth largest exporter in the world and the fifth-largest importer. It also had the third-largest inward foreign direct investment, and the fifth-largest outward foreign direct investment. In 2020, the UK's trade with the 27 member states of the European Union accounted for 49% of the country's exports and 52% of its imports. The service sector dominates, contributing 81% of GDP; the financial services industry is pa ...
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Financial Services Companies Established In 2011
Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of financial economics bridges the two). Finance activities take place in financial systems at various scopes, thus the field can be roughly divided into personal, corporate, and public finance. In a financial system, assets are bought, sold, or traded as financial instruments, such as currencies, loans, bonds, shares, stocks, options, futures, etc. Assets can also be banked, invested, and insured to maximize value and minimize loss. In practice, risks are always present in any financial action and entities. A broad range of subfields within finance exist due to its wide scope. Asset, money, risk and investment management aim to maximize value and minimize volatility. Financial analysis is viability, stability, and profitability assessment ...
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British Companies Established In 2011
British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, the English language as spoken and written in the United Kingdom or, more broadly, throughout the British Isles * Celtic Britons, an ancient ethno-linguistic group * Brittonic languages, a branch of the Insular Celtic language family (formerly called British) ** Common Brittonic, an ancient language Other uses *''Brit(ish)'', a 2018 memoir by Afua Hirsch *People or things associated with: ** Great Britain, an island ** United Kingdom, a sovereign state ** Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1800) ** United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922) See also * Terminology of the British Isles * Alternative names for the British * English (other) * Britannic (other) * British Isles * Brit (other) * Briton (d ...
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Anthony Seldon
Sir Anthony Francis Seldon (born 2 August 1953) is a British educator and contemporary historian. As an author, he is known in part for his political biographies of Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May. He was the 13th Master (headmaster) of Wellington College, one of Britain's co-educational independent boarding schools. He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham from 2015 to 2020, when he was succeeded by James Tooley. In 2009, he set up The Wellington Academy, the first state school to carry the name of its founding independent school. Before that, he was head of Brighton College. Seldon is the author or editor of more than 45 books on contemporary history, politics and education. He was the co-founder and first director of the Centre for Contemporary British History, is the co-founder of Action for Happiness, is a governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and is on the board of a number of charities and educatio ...
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Scottish National Investment Bank
The Scottish National Investment Bank is a Scottish state-owned investment and national development bank based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Although referred to as a bank, it does not do normal banking operations nor accepts deposits. The bank uses public money to fund commercial projects across Scotland with the hope that this seed capital will encourage further private investment, to help develop a fairer, more sustainable economy. £2 Billion of taxpayers money is earmarked for the bank. The bank is a public corporation, with the only shareholder being the Scottish Government. It reports to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy. History The bank was announced in September 2017 in the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's 2017 Programme for Government. Benny Higgins was appointed as a strategic adviser, to oversee the organisation launching. In February 2018 an implementation plan was launched. The Scottish National Investment Bank Act 2020 was passed by Parliament on 21 ...
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M Squared Lasers
M Squared Lasers is a company headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland with a subsidiary, M Squared Lasers Inc., based in San Jose, California. It was established in 2005 by Graeme Malcolm and Gareth Maker who had previously been directors of Microlase Limited and Coherent Scotland Limited. The company designs and manufactures lasers and photonic instruments for applications in academia, remote sensing, biophotonics, defence and metrology. According to their entry in the Scottish Optoelectronics Association, the company specializes technically in diode-pumped solid-state ti-sapphire, mid-infrared and terahertz lasers. History M Squared Lasers was founded in 2005 by Dr. Graham Malcolm FRSE and Dr. Gareth Maker who had previously held senior roles in Coherent Scotland, a subsidiary of Coherent Inc. Malcolm and Maker founded an optoelectronics company called Microlase in 1992 as a spinout from Strathclyde University in Scotland. Microlase was acquired by Coherent in 2000. Malcolm wo ...
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News Corp
News Corporation, stylized as News Corp, is an American mass media and publishing company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The second incarnation of the News Corporation (1980–2013), original News Corporation, it was formed on June 28, 2013, following a Corporate spin-off, spin-off of the media outlets of the original News Corp as 21st Century Fox. Operating across digital real estate information, news media, book publishing, and cable television, News Corp's notable assets include Dow Jones & Company (publisher of ''The Wall Street Journal''), News UK (publisher of ''The Sun (United Kingdom), The Sun'' and ''The Times''), News Corp Australia, REA Group (operator of realestate.com.au), Realtor.com, and book publisher HarperCollins. It is one of two companies that succeeded the original News Corporation, alongside 21st Century Fox—which consisted of broadcasting and media properties such as Fox Entertainment Group. The spin-out was structured so that 21st C ...
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Unicorn (finance)
In business, a unicorn is a privately held startup company valued at over US$1 billion. The term was first published in 2013, coined by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, choosing the mythical animal to represent the statistical rarity of such successful ventures. CB Insights identified 1,170 unicorns worldwide . Unicorns with over $10 billion in valuation have been designated as "decacorn" companies. For private companies valued over $100 billion, the terms "centicorn", "hectocorn", and "super-unicorn" have been used. The term "kilocorn" has been used for companies valued at $1 trillion, of which Apple was the first. History Aileen Lee originated the term "unicorn" in a 2013 ''TechCrunch'' article, "Welcome To The Unicorn Club: Learning from Billion-Dollar Startups". At the time, 39 companies were identified as unicorns. In a different study done by ''Harvard Business Review'', it was determined that startups founded between 2012 and 2015 were growing in valuation twice as f ...
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Gousto
Gousto, a trading name of SCA Investments Limited, is a British meal kit retailer, headquartered in Shepherd's Bush, London, founded by Timo Boldt and James Carter. Gousto supplies subscribers with recipe kit boxes which include ready-measured, fresh ingredients and easily followed recipes. History In August 2013, Gousto's co-founders appeared on the BBC's Dragons' Den. In December 2015, Gousto raised £9m in funding from BGF Ventures, MMC Ventures, Unilever Ventures and the Angel Co-Fund, with a further £10m in November 2016. In October 2016, Gousto's co-founder Timo Boldt was awarded IGD's 'Young Entrepreneur of the Year' award. In January 2019, Gousto raised £18m in funding from Unilever Ventures, Hargreave Hale, MMC Ventures, the Angel CoFund, and fitness coach Joe Wicks. In July 2019, Gousto raised £30m in funding from private equity firm Perwyn. In February 2020, Gousto partnered with UK-based The Meatless Farm Company to build upon Gousto's objective of tapping ...
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Patient Capital
Patient capital is another name for long term capital. With patient capital, the investor is willing to make a financial investment in a business with no expectation of turning a quick profit. Instead, the investor is willing to forgo an immediate return in anticipation of more substantial returns down the road. Prominent examples of patient capital includes pensions, sovereign wealth funds, and university endowments. Governments with access to patient capital may have greater maneuverability in formulating domestic economic policies. Although patient capital can be considered a traditional investment instrument, it has gained new life with the rise in environmentally and socially responsible enterprises. In these cases, it may take the form of equity, debt, loan guarantees or other financial instruments, and is characterized by: * Willingness to forgo maximum financial returns for social impact, and an unwillingness to sacrifice the interests of the end customer for the sake of ...
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