Mercia Fund Managers scooped the top award at last night’s Growth Investor Awards, picking up the award for Best Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) Investment Manager.
The event, which was held at the Royal Lancaster Hotel London, was attended by almost 500 people and celebrated the role of the UK SME investment community in job and wealth creation. The Awards, which are organised by Intelligent Partnership recognise those enabling start up and ‘scale up’ businesses to realise their full potential and drive Britain’s economic recovery.
The Best EIS Investment Manager Award recognises providers specialising in EIS which can demonstrate innovation in product development and impact on SME growth. A highly experienced panel of judges deemed Mercia to be the best performing manager based on the team’s increase in investment volume and performance, impact on investee companies, innovative product development and adviser outreach. Mercia was surrounded by its peer group in the finals alongside Calculus Capital, CHF Media, MMC Ventures, Parkwalk Advisers and Puma Investments.
The Growth Investor Awards are highly regarded within the industry with an advisory panel including Sherry Cotu OBE, Luke Johnson and chair of the British Venture Capital Association (BVCA) Tim Hames.
Margot James MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, commented: “It is events like these – where the business community comes together to both reward and recognise laudable achievements – that instil in us all a great sense of pride in the UK. We are working hard to support businesses and entrepreneurs across the UK to ensure they can access the finance and wider support to grow and have the right conditions for companies to invest in the long term. Events like the Growth Investor Awards do a great service to that end. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate everyone who received an award and hope this serves as inspiration to others to start and build their own businesses.”
Guy Tolhurst, Managing Director at Intelligent Partnership said: “Maintaining a balance between the needs of investors and long term commitment to investee companies can be a fine line in this industry – the judges felt Mercia Fund Managers had maintained that balance superbly.”
Dr Paul Mattick, Head of Sales and Private Investor Relations for Mercia said: “The Investor Relations and Investment Teams have worked tirelessly to support early-stage businesses with much needed investment and operational support. Mercia is well respected within the industry for providing an innovative service to our investors and winning this award recognises our hard work. We are very proud of what we have achieved so far, creating diversified early-stage technology funds, aiming to triple invested capital in five to seven years. We have an EIS fund open all year round, with our next close being on the 31st December 2017 and I am sure that winning this award will help to further raise interest in Mercia’s ambitions.”