“Equity is not just for punks” – breakfast briefing is told

PKF Francis Clark’s Truro office hosted their monthly breakfast briefing last week and the subject was “Equity – practicalities and principals”.

20 people attended the breakfast, event where they heard from Brent Treloar of FSE Group and Henry Maples of Murrell Associates, as well as our own Richard Wadman.  The slides from the event can be found here.

Brent began proceedings by relaying his practical experience in working for the FSE Group on Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Investment Fund. He spoke about what they look for in a proposition document for potential equity investment. He also touched on a number of phrases they do not like to hear in propositions/ pitch documents…

Henry’s presentation covered the different sources of equity investment, from Business Angel, through to Venture Capital/ Private Equity and gave an indication of the different levels of legal work associated with each (and the costs of the legal input).  He went on to talk about some key terms associated with equity investment and some legal issues to be considered.

Finishing off the presentation aspect of the breakfast, Richard quickly covered off a number of other aspects under the heading of ‘investor readiness’, including SEIS/ EIS and valuations, and the importance of an ‘equity mind-set’.  Borrowing from a colleague’s excellent presentation at Finance in Cornwall, Richard also spoke briefly on choice of equity source.

Mention was also made of the Access to Finance grant funding which can be used in Cornwall and Isles of Scilly to subsidise professional costs incurred in finance raising and related matters such as Crowdfunding videos – more detail on the grants can be found here.

The context for the event – which was picked up in an interesting and engaging Q&A session that followed the presentations – 2018 was a record year for equity investment into smaller companies.  The factors, maybe, behind this were discussed; which broadly were those outlined in an earlier blog.

If you wish to discuss any proposition with us, please contact your usual PKF Francis Clark contact or if not a client (yet), please contact me and I will refer you onto the appropriate colleague.

Before I sign off, I must thank Linda and Devon in particular for their assistance in organising this breakfast event. We also have next month’s event open for bookings and it’s on one of the hottest topics in company ownership – Employee Ownership Trusts.  See link for more details and to book a place.

By Andrew James