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Back to Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund News – Issue 6

Foreword

The sixth edition of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund (NPIF) newsletter marks  the Fund’s two-year anniversary.

NPIF continues to perform strongly, completing 440 investments worth a total of £100m across the 10 Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP) that make up the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ region. In turn, this has provided real economic benefits, such as job creation and business growth, to fuel the ambition of our business communities.

In 2016, the British Business Bank sought to establish an investment vehicle that would support economic prosperity in the North and help to reduce the historic divide with London and the South East. With the support from the 10 LEPs, the European Regional Development Fund, the European Investment Bank, and HM Government, we have been able to realise this objective and make real strides in reducing the regional gap.

Our fund managers have played a huge role in the investment of these funds. Being on the ground and engaging directly with the business community and support networks has boosted our awareness greatly in these two years.  In February, we hit the significant milestone of £25m invested in Greater Manchester businesses alone, and we are rapidly approaching other significant investment milestones in both Leeds City Region and in the Tees Valley.

This series of milestones made in less than two years is testament to the ambition of Northern SMEs. The funding is leading to investment in people, equipment, and infrastructure in the North’s key sectors, such as the manufacturing, technology and the creative industries.

Maintaining this momentum is the priority as we go into the Fund’s third year. We have established a digital information hub and a broader network of regional managers in the last year, meaning the British Business Bank is now better equipped than ever to get our message to the market and inform entrepreneurs of the options available to them.

We hope that by boosting awareness of the benefits of external finance, we can build on NPIF’s successful second year and help even more businesses across the North realise their ambitions of scaling up and staying ahead.

Keith Morgan
CEO of British Business Bank

The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund project is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 and the European Investment Bank.

Editors Notes