The Lemon Fool

I see Proven are also now offering a new subscription offer, it looks like a huge party this year for vct stables !

barchid wrote:I see Proven are also now offering a new subscription offer, it looks like a huge party this year for vct stables !

I fear its a huge party for small start up companies seeking funds. I wonder if there are sufficient good ones to mop up all of the new VCT money.
So could life become more dificult for VCTs - and is this a possible reason why a number of long established, and highly regarded VCTs have recently sold out to new owners - Northern (3 VCTs) to Mercia, Baronsmead (2 VCTs) to Gresham House, Mobeus (4 VCTs) to Gresham House, and Maven (4 VCTs) to Mattioli Woods?

scotia wrote:

barchid wrote:I see Proven are also now offering a new subscription offer, it looks like a huge party this year for vct stables !

I fear its a huge party for small start up companies seeking funds. I wonder if there are sufficient good ones to mop up all of the new VCT money.

No. But neither are there sufficient good investments anywhere else to mop up the wall of money printed since 2008/9. And my gut feeling suggests they may do better than many more mainstream investments from covid.

So could life become more dificult for VCTs - and is this a possible reason why a number of long established, and highly regarded VCTs have recently sold out to new owners - Northern (3 VCTs) to Mercia, Baronsmead (2 VCTs) to Gresham House, Mobeus (4 VCTs) to Gresham House, and Maven (4 VCTs) to Mattioli Woods?

I expect those successful VCT houses sold because they received attractive offers. One more destination for a little of all that money.

And how didn't I know about the Maven sale? Duh!

Scotia/Uncle
The Maven sale was indeed interesting as MW had earlier agreed a deal with Amati, which after about a year was cancelled, by Amati I believe, so then along comes Maven to fill their needs.
No reason was ever given, to my knowledge, as to why Amati backed out.

It is, of course, the VCT managers, rather than the actual VCTs, that have sold out.

Whilst this comes with obvious concerns and new conflict issues, I also view it as a sign of maturity of this asset class, where consolidation was overdue. The ability of VCT managers to target deals where the VCTs are offered the opportunity to co-invest with non-VCT managed funds is also positive, because it widens the investment pool. Tim Levett of Mercia made this point at the NVT AGM last week and he referred to a recent deal which the Northern VCTs could not have done without non-VCT qualifying funds co-investing. Easier to stitch together where there is a common manager.

I think that it is ever more important to look very critically at the amounts that VCTs are raising to assess whether this will cause any to have to chase deals in order to comply with the VCT rules.