Private equity and venture capital to support the UK’s economic recovery - new report highlights industry’s role in building back after the pandemic
Top lines:
- Private equity and venture capital will support efforts across the UK to deliver growth in the COVID economic recovery and support other public policy priorities, as evidenced by 30 examples in the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association’s (BVCA) ‘New Horizons’ report.
- The case studies also show the industry addressing the ‘levelling up’ agenda across the UK, driving the UK’s global competitiveness, and working towards Net Zero.
- Companies featured include Revolut, Dr Martens, Merlin Entertainments and UK Power Reserve.
- The report focuses on the public value of private equity and venture capital investment. It shows that, after the hiatus in investments caused by COVID in spring 2020, activity rallied in the last half of 2020 with each quarter registering 200+ deals with an aggregate value of around £37.4 billion.
- BVCA research goes on to demonstrate that productivity in private equity backed firms outstrips that of listed firms, pointing towards a brighter future for businesses benefiting from private equity investment as we start the recovery from the pandemic.
Press release:
Private equity and venture capital investment will play a crucial role in supporting the UK economy as we begin the recovery from the pandemic, a new report sets out today.
The British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association’s (BVCA) ‘New Horizons’ report highlights more than 30 examples of private equity and venture capital investments in companies which are supporting the economic recovery post-COVID, providing opportunities across the UK’s regions, driving UK global competitiveness, and working towards Net Zero.
Each story illustrates how private equity or venture capital support and expertise has enabled the company to navigate the pandemic successfully, scale up to meet the demands of their customers and continually contribute to the UK economy through job creation, increased productivity, innovative new products and ideas or international exports.
Businesses from all sectors are featured, with studies from across a number of technology disciplines, healthcare, consumer retail, real estate, pharmaceuticals and agriculture and include household names such as Purple Bricks, Shazam and Skyscanner among others.
To provide further insight to the contributions made by PE and VC, the report also collates the latest industry-wide statistics. Highlights include that:
- The UK is home to 35% of Europe’s ‘unicorns’, with six of those located in the North West of England.
- The typical angel and VC-backed business is also 60% more productive per worker than the UK private sector average, contributing £88,100 per annum to UK GDP compared to £54,700.
- 63% of private equity companies take ESG principles into account when making investments, and 48% now report, in detail, on the ESG impact of their portfolio companies to institutional investors, like pensions funds or insurance companies.
Michael Moore, BVCA Director General, said:
“Responsible businesses recognise that in addition to generating economic value for the country they must also produce social value, bringing the two elements together to create public value.
“At a time of unprecedented challenges, private equity and venture capital investments are supporting UK businesses to recover, to provide benefits across the nations and regions of the UK, to compete on a global platform, and to work towards Net Zero. This is the public value which private equity and venture capital investment is proud to bring to the UK”
Notes to Editors
- Read the report here.
- Bringing together more than 30 new case studies from venture capital and private equity backed businesses, the ‘New Horizons’ report splits these to four key themes - COVID recovery, UK Cohesion, global Competitiveness and Climate/ESG – aligning them to government policy priority.
- The British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (BVCA) is the industry body for the UK private equity and venture capital industry. The BVCA has over 750 member firms, including more than 450 fund managers and institutional investors, representing the majority of UK-based private equity and venture capital firms and their advisers.
- For more information, contact Will English on [email protected] or +44 (0)20 7492 0424 / 07794 505765
