CREATING
VALUE
03/
Maven exits Crawford
Scientific for 4.7x total return
04/ VCT investment in Contego
08/ New VCT Top-up Offers
11/ hedgehog lab set to increase its
global footprint
12/ Feature: VCT investment finally
joins the digital age
Issue
17
Welcome to Issue 17 of Creating Value. On behalf of the team at Maven, I'd like to
wish all of our client investors a healthy and prosperous year ahead.
2017 saw a significant period of growth for Maven. During the year we added five new
regional offices around the UK and a number of valuable new colleagues joined our
investment and support team. As many of our investors will be aware, we are firm believers
in the merits of having a regional business, taking the view that in order to get access to
some of brightest companies outside of London and the South-East it is important to have
local people on the ground across the whole of the UK, developing relationships with local
businesses and the intermediaries who advise them.
Since I last wrote there have been several notable realisations. These exits included the
sale of Crawford Scientific and SPS, which achieved respective MoM (multiple of money)
returns of 4.7x cost and 3x cost over the life of the investment, on sums invested in 2014.
Crawford is based in Strathaven, near Glasgow, and SPS is located in Blackpool, lending
further credence to the attraction of investing across the regions and finding value in
markets which may have a lower competitive presence. The funds realised from these
sales will allow us to continue to expand the Maven VCT portfolios and support a progressive
dividend programme for investors.
There was also significant progress in portfolio construction during 2017. Our regional
teams completed eight new investments for the Maven VCTs across a wide range of
sectors. We are targeting in the main those businesses which can already demonstrate
measurable revenue traction, and crucially, are seeking to support proven executives with
a track record of delivering results or sha