Calculus Capital CEO John Glencross has been featured in a WealthBriefing article discussing EIS investing outside of London and the South East.
The article raised concerns that HMRC figures showed EIS investments are “worryingly underutilised by businesses outside of London and the South East”.
John Glencross was asked to comment on the perceived regional imbalance:
“We’ve been investing in SMEs for nearly 20 years and one thing that’s absolutely clear is that there are talented and dynamic people developing exciting new products and services right across the UK,”
“Our own experience is that most of our investment is outside London and the south east, with investments in Scotland, the Northeast and Northwest, the midlands, Wales and the West of England,”
“In relation to the overall figures from HMRC though, one factor to consider is that the south east is a disproportionately wealthy area and consequently has a higher representation of wealthy business angels. In my experience, business angels tend to invest in businesses that are geographically close,”
“It may also be the case that the statistics are a little out of date. When a lot of EIS investing was in solar and other alternative energies, many of those companies had their registered offices in London even though the solar installations would not have been in the capital. The size of those fundraisings, often in the hundreds of millions, would have distorted figures until a couple of years ago when alternative energy ceased to be a qualifying investment,”
“We would though very much support moves to further raise the profile of the Enterprise Investment Scheme, which provides hugely important capital for the innovative and growing SMEs that are the lifeblood of our economy,”
Map below demonstrates the spread of Calculus Investments across the UK and Ireland:
To read the article in full click here.